Groupthink In The Film Groupthink

In a film, where 12 angry men are brought together to decide on whether the slum boy is guilty of killing his father. People face several challenges and overcome certain barriers when they become a part of formal group and start working towards a common objective.

1. In this film, where 11 out of total 12 jury members voted accused as guilty and eager to leave the room at the earliest. Some of the jury members were so rigid to even re-think over their decision without even realising that this can take up the accused life. In such a situation group members become so confident and failed to think realistically than the phenomenon of ‘GroupThink’ occurs.

These are following recommended ways by which GroupThink can be avoided.
Groupthink

can be avoided by limiting the team size, typical team size is less than 10.And there must be well defined boundaries for inclusion. Casual involvement in group breeds dysfunction, which may result in consensus for the wrong reasons.
Inviting an external perspective could have helped jury members to avoid Groupthink. An outside with a different viewpoint must be included in the discussion and jury members must have procedure to protect external viewpoint in the process.
Use of various techniques such as Six Hats Thinking is recommended lengthen the discussion and improve the quality of discussion.

2. In this film, where juror no 12 had his own opinion but was able to hide it carefully and agrees to the rest of the group member. This is the typical case of conformity where people hide their opinion just to being accepted in the group.

There are certain ways recommended by which conformity can be avoided.
Jury should have used the Nominal Group Technique from the starting itself. People should be allowed to privately write down their opinion in front of the jury.
Leader should have given his opinion at the end as this way he could avoid influencing other members.

3. Group Members must have decided few norms and regulations i.e. number of breaks allowed per person, timings of each short break, etc. These norms would have helped jury to avoid the hassle created because of frequent short break of a jury member.

4. The jury must have given the limited time instead of unlimited time so as to provide the time boundary to the group and could have avoided inhibition that jury member had regarding the timeless argument and discussion.