The movie ‘12 angry me’ is not only humorous but it is also informative. It is a candid portrayal of various socio-psychological perspectives, used in during the study of human social behavior. Filmed as a story of a 12-members jury, under the directions of a judge, to determine an anonymous verdict in a murder case, the film delivers very convincing illustrations of cognitive dissonance, groupthink, and schemas.
As the jury’s deliberation session commences, the jurors have the privilege of familiarizing with one another. In their conversation, the audience cannot help but recognize the informal anonymity in their feeling that the defendant is guilty of his accused crime. However, before during these moments, juror 2 makes it clear that he has never been in jury before, while juror 3 confesses that he was asleep during the court session. Even more interesting, juror 7 makes it clear that he is in a hurry to attend a ball game, and as such, the jury ought to finalize their general reaction from the court sessions to a guilty verdict. When the jurors ultimately take their positions around the jury table, jury 4 suggests that the jurors should take a preliminary vote, as the jury customs dictates.
The preliminary vote results in 11 of the 12 jurors voting in favor of the defendant’s guilt, while the one of them votes in favor of the defendant’s acquittal. Immediately, the isolated decision by juror 8 to cast reasonable doubt on the defendant’s guilt against the other jurors’ decision receives a general distaste from the rest of the jurors. Among the most vocal of the juror’s to express their distaste are juror 3, 7, and 10. Specifically from juror’s 10 reaction, he sarcastically insinuates that he is not surprised that the prelimin...
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... his action, and make the meeting last less long. Similarly, like most of the jurors in the room he has an acute distaste for correction. After all, most of them seem to conform to a certain desired ideal – that is, being right. This way, irrespective of the defendant’s sentence, he is okay with making any decision, provided no one attempts to reproach him. This conformity to ‘being seen as right’ makes him very close with juror 11.
Conclusively, the film proves that groupthink, conformity, and schema, as aspects of human behavior, can produce stereotypes, prejudices and influence poor choices and presumptions in decision making. Conversely, these aspects are somewhat helpful. The input of these aspects in interpersonal relationships by some individuals challenges the others to think harder. Ultimately, they are able to produce more concrete and decisive solutions.
Juror number eight is the main protagonist, he also a reserved with his thoughts, yet very strategic with them. He is the defender of the down trodden victim. He has a calm rational approach to everything and he reveals the gaps in the testimonies placed against the defendant. These examples would be; that the old man couldn’t have seen the boy run out of the house, as the old man had a limp and therefore could not make it to the door in time. The old lady across the road could have never saw the boy stab his father, due to she wasn’t wearing her glasses and it was pitch black. Number eight is a man that s...
Guilty or not guilty? This the key question during the murder trial of a young man accused of fatally stabbing his father. The play 12 Angry Men, by Reginald Rose, introduces to the audience twelve members of a jury made up of contrasting men from various backgrounds. One of the most critical elements of the play is how the personalities and experiences of these men influence their initial majority vote of guilty. Three of the most influential members include juror #3, juror #10, and juror #11. Their past experiences and personal bias determine their thoughts and opinions on the case. Therefore, how a person feels inside is reflected in his/her thoughts, opinions, and behavior.
As one of the seven jury deliberations documented and recorded in the ABC News television series In the Jury Room the discussions of the jurors were able to be seen throughout the United States. A transcript was also created by ABC News for the public as well. The emotions and interactions of the jurors were now capable of being portrayed to anyone interested in the interworkings of jury deliberations. The first task,...
The first vote ended with eleven men voting guilty and one man not guilty. We soon learn that several of the men voted guilty since the boy had a rough background not because of the facts they were presented with. Although numerous jurors did make racist or prejudice comments, juror ten and juror three seemed to be especially judgmental of certain types of people. Juror three happened to be intolerant of young men and stereotyped them due to an incident that happened to his son. In addition, the third juror began to become somewhat emotional talking about his son, showing his past experience may cloud his judgment. Juror ten who considered all people from the slums “those people” was clearly prejudiced against people from a different social background. Also, Juror ten stated in the beginning of the play “You 're not going to tell us that we 're supposed to believe that kid, knowing what he is. Listen, I 've lived among 'em all my life. You can 't believe a word they say. I mean, they 're born liars.” Juror ten did not respect people from the slums and believed them to all act the same. As a result, Juror ten believed that listening to the facts of the case were pointless. For this reason, the tenth juror already knew how “those people” acted and knew for sure the boy was not innocent. Even juror four mentioned just how the slums are a “breeding ground
...a unanimous vote of not guilty. The final scene takes place signifying the "adjourning stage". Two of the jurors, eight and three exchange the only character names mentioned during the film. The entire process of groupthink occurs in multiple ways that display its symptoms on individual behavior, emotions, and personal filters. These symptoms adversity affected the productivity throughout the juror's debate. In all, all twelve men came to an agreement but displayed group social psychological aspects.
... believed in the innocence of the young man and convinced the others to view the evidence and examine the true events that occurred. He struggled with the other jurors because he became the deviant one in the group, not willing to follow along with the rest. His reasoning and his need to examine things prevailed because one by one, the jurors started to see his perspective and they voted not guilty. Some jurors were not convinced, no matter how much evidence was there, especially Juror #3. His issues with his son affected his decision-making but in the end, he only examined the evidence and concluded that the young man was not guilty.
These two jurors are almost the plain opposite of each other. Juror 3 appears to be a very intolerant man accustomed of forcing his wishes and views upon others. On the other hand, Juror 8 is an honest man who keeps an open mind for both evidence and reasonable doubt. Since these two people are indeed very different, they both have singular thoughts relating to the murder case. Juror 8 is a man who is loyal to justice. In the beginning of the play, he was the only one to vote ‘not guilty’ the first time the twelve men called a vote. Although his personality is reflected on being a quiet, thoughtful, gentle man, he is still a very persistent person who will fight for justice to be done. Juror 8 is a convincing man who presents his arguments well, but can also be seen as manipulative. An example would be when he kept provoking Juror 3 until he finally said “I’m going to kill you" to Juror 8. He did this because he wanted to prove that saying "I’ll kill you" doesn’t necessarily mean that Juror 3 was actually going to kill him. Juror 3 is a totally different character. He is a stubborn man who can be detected with a streak of sad...
...the facts of the case. If not for Juror number 8’s determination to uphold his values at the risk of being “unpopular” among the other eleven jurors, a young man would have been wrongfully sentenced for a crime did not commit. It is easy to see the potential for disastrous consequences if a jury allows personal bias and peer-pressure to overwhelm their own critical thinking skills and moral compass in making life altering decisions.
After they have sat down, they begin to discuss the case, but it is done very briefly. They then hold an open vote by raising their hands, which results to a 11-1; eleven believe that the suspect is guilty, one man does not. The other men criticize the man who voted not guilty (juror #8). (7) The majority of the men voted guilty, simply to leave. Juror #7 even tells the group that he wants the thing over with so he can go to the ballgame he had tickets for. Juror #8 is irritated with the group because they weren’t treating the case with any care. He clarifies that he didn’t choose ‘not guilty’ because he believed it but because he wanted to look deeper into the case, and make sure that the verdict is correct so they don’t send an innocent man to prison. (3) Juror #8 is very patient with the group, even though most of the group was very disrespectful towards him. (6) Actually, most of the jurors were intimidating each other
...ul moment in the movie, similar to McLemore’s Guideline #3 “it is to a man’s honor if he avoids quarrels, but fools never exercise self-control” (2003). Instead of the other jurors engaging in an argument, and telling him how ignorant he was, they made a stronger statement by turning their backs to him, shutting him out. Eventually, Juror #10 voted not guilty.
However, juror 3 did not maintain control after discussions with juror 8. For example, when juror 8 made a personal attack on juror 3, juror 3 lost his cool, requiring restraint from the other jurors to the point of yelling, “Let me go! I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him!” (Flouri & Fitsakis, 2007, p.459). His emotional intelligence (Budjac Corvette, 2007, p. 29) was a superior negotiation tactic throughout the deliberation process.
The first sign of the clear difference in behavior between the two jurors occurs when the men fill the deliberation room. Juror 3 immediately begins to throw his beliefs onto the other jurors. For example, he pushes his influence onto Juror 2 who is apparently the weakest compared to the others. He forcefully tries to convince the men that the young boy is obviously guilty without apparent reasoning to support his claims. When Juror 8 is the only man that votes not guilty opposed the other eleven men, Juror 3 is shocked and makes that clear by standing up irritably. When a second juror changes his vote, unknowingly, Juror 3 angrily accuses Juror 5, although it was Juror 9 who admits later one. Instead of apologizing to Juror 5, he continues to show his irritableness. Further on, Juror 3 continues to behave dramatically and exerts his opinion when he screams, “This kid is guilty! He’s got to burn! We’re letting him slip through our fingers.” Juror 8 responds to his outburst by saying that he is sadist, showing his resentment of Juror 3’s conviction. Clearly, the two jurors that have the biggest impact on the movie’s plot have opposite behaviors that contribute to their incessant
Even though he was dissatisfied with the way the trial was being controlled and faced with much antagonism, he continued to support for the boy. Juror eight wanted to examine the evidence in more depth because he was very keen to justice, and was compassionate toward the nineteen-year-old suspect. He used different strategies to find the trust about the murder, which includes thinking outside of the box and picturing different variations of the same circumstance. His behavior of inspiring others to share their views and linking with them on a personal level helped him to show the right path. His democratic and affiliative style kept the discussion going and to a conclusion without any major
Marshall, is a man who becomes easily convinced by both sides of the argument. He initially does not really comprehend the importance of the case and easily lets the rest of the jury such as numbers three, eight and ten corrupt his own opinion. He intakes all of the evidence and states that he does not believe the defendant’s alibi which will ultimately be the reasoning for his decision to vote guilty. When juror eight explicates that being under emotional stress can make the person forget certain details, he asks juror four to recall some events in the past days. Juror four does recollect the events, with some difficulty and juror eight further points out that he was not under any emotional stress when asked; thus, there was no reason to think that the defendant should be able to remember the exact elements of the movie that he had seen. Juror four does further inquire much information about the witness, however, after juror eight further examines the rest of the evidence and delivers his results to the members of the jury, juror four's convictions suddenly change to a vote of “not
He had the weakest relational ethics, he did not contribute to most of the discussions, was easily distracted, and often talked about irrelevant topics. Juror 12 was indecisive, changed his vote several times until finally deciding on “not guilty”.