Essay about 12 Angry Men Group Behavior

The capacity of human beings to possess different viewpoints, opinions beliefs and choices is what draws the line between man and animal. During the course of Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose, the viewer sees exactly what makes up the unique and complex nature of man and how these individualities can compare and contrast when combined. The message she conveyed by her depictions of the opinions of each of the jurors was that with twelve different people comes twelve different viewpoints that everyone included can learn from. By using the Marxist and Historical lens, it reveals that even though the jurors are seen as a collective, their individuality is what propels the story into a study of human nature and interpersonal communication.

Reginald Rose’s ‘Twelve Angry Men’ is a play which displays the twelve individual jurors’ characteristics through the deliberation of a first degree murder case. Out of the twelve jurors, the 8th Juror shows an outstanding heroism exists in his individual bravery and truthfulness. At the start, the 8th Juror stands alone with his opposing view of the case to the other eleven jurors. Furthermore, he is depicted as a juror who definitely understands the jury system and defends it from the jurors who do not know it fully. At the end, he eventually successes to persuade the eleven other jurors and achieves a unanimous verdict, showing his

In the play “Twelve Angry men”, the story line presents a variety of perspectives and opinions between twelve very different men. Some are more likely to be pointed out as prejudice, and others are more focused on reaching fair justice. Clearly, it is quite difficult for different people to vote ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’ in unity when coming to a fair decision. In all of the twelve jurors, I have chosen Juror 3 and Juror 8 for contrast and comparison. I believe that Juror number 3 is a very opinionated man, with more differences than similarities comparing with Juror number 8.

With a very short temper to go along with his all-powerful attitude, juror three is not a nice person. Already he has threatened death towards one of the other jurors and would have made good the threat had it not been for the decisive actions of the other jurors who jumped up to hold him back.. An acrimonious and blind-sighted executioner, juror #3 is one of many that an innocent victim would not want to decide their fate. Unfortunately, democracy does not only apply to the fair and just, and undoubtedly innocent men and women have fallen prey to the unwavering wrath of men

12 Angry Men by Reginald Rose is a twisting story where a son is accussed of stabbing his father to death. Twelve strangers are told to listen to this court case and are then stuck in a small, hot room where they are told to decide on a verdict, whether or not the kid lives or dies. The jury finally decides on the verdict of : Not Guilty. Three major facts that influence the juries agreement that the accussed is not guilty include doubts of the murder weapon, doubts of the old man’s testimony, and doubts of the lady across the street’s testimony.

Juror three, labeled as the sadist, was the last man to vote not guilty and held on to his guilty decision because of his ego. Juror three was involved in ego conflict with most of the other men. However, juror three was especially excitable and in defense of his ego against juror eight. It was not until the end of the film that juror three finally realized that his ego was the only reason why he was voting not guilty.

The group initially started with a process of arriving at a decision by voting and there was a groupthink causing

It was interesting to see the large differences in each juror’s lives. Every jury is eclectic because it is made up of very different people with very different family lives. For example, Juror #3 seems to be a well educated and well off man as he was wearing suspenders and a dress shirt. However, Juror #7 was a young man who seemed fairly uneducated and fairly poor because he dressed in a sweatsuit and used improper language. It was very interesting to see these different personalities clash. In the beginning when the men are all on the same page that the defendant is guilty except one, the men generally more relaxed (except for Juror #3).However, as more of the men start to explain their reasonings for seeing reasonable doubt, tension is prevalent in the room. The men who vote guilty are rallying up against the people who voted not guilty. The feeling of the room switches again as most jurors decide the defendant is guilty. That being said, Juror #3 creates a lot of tension in the room throughout the film due to the the fact that he yells at anyone who disagrees with him because he is unwilling to hear their opinions. For example, while one man is explaining why he thinks there is reasonable doubt, juror #3 decides to start a game of tic tac toe. This is very interesting because he is ready to send the defendant to his deathbed

It must be very disappointing to take blame for something you did not do. In the play " Twelve Angry Men " by Reginald Rose, act one, most of the jurors said their statements without enough evidence and almost sentenced the kid guilty. Later on, the jurors change their minds because of the evidence presented to them. Therefore, the author shows you should not go along with what you hear without proof.

Although a lot of evidence was really convincing, he tried to prove it unconvincing and use sarcasm to convince other jurors otherwise. One example of #7 using sarcasm would be this quote: "Why don't we have them run the trial over..." I think this quote clearly shows that juror #7 is trying to convince other jurors, that court's evidence proves the young man is guilty without reasonable doubt. Also to break #8's spirit he used name calling, another kind of peer pressure. I believe this is a very good example: "The boy is guilty pal, like the nose on your face." The third and last juror I picked was #8, he was not using sarcasm, nor was he muscle flexing, he was using reasonable argument, which helped him convince all the jurors that the young man was innocent. He did not try to convince anybody by screaming at him, on the contrary he tried to go over all the evidence, and he was using intelligent thinking, like trying to calculate exact times, and figure out the correct position of the switch-blade in the chest of the father. He was also trying to recreate a situation to see if indeed one of the witnesses on the stand was lying.

The film Twelve Angry Men shows many social psychology theories. This film presents some jurors who must decide if an accused murderer is guilty or innocent. In the beginning, all but one juror voted for guilty. Eventually, however, they come to a non-guilty verdict. It shows how a various group of individuals react to a situation that no one wants to be involved in. Twelve Angry Men exhibits so many examples of the true power of informational social influence and normative social influence. According to informational social influence, individuals tend to comply with others because they believe that another individuals version of a situation is more valid than their own. Normative social influence is a type of social influence that leads to conformity. This theory seems to fit in along with this movie because of the way the juror’s decisional processes went. Informational social influence is aggravated by obscurity and doubt of situation, importance of being correct, time constriction, and presence of those recognized as professionals. Just within the first few minutes of the movie, social influence is shown. In the jury room, a heated debate is prevented by an initial vote. This vote, which was taken publicly, was vulnerable to normative social influence or conformity from the fear of seeming in submissive. An obvious feeling of doubt is presented as the jurors vote. This hesitance can be perceived as weak conviction swayed by the guilty majority’s influence. Time constraints intensify informational social influence and possibly helped play a role in causing some of the jurors to cast guilty, conformist votes. Majority influence and social impact theory generate conformity. These theories are relevant in the jury context and are relevant to an explanation of Twelve Angry Men. Social impact theory specifies the situational and personal factors that bring on conformity. Conformity is enhanced by the immediacy element of social impact theory which brings to belief that without anonymity conflict is increasingly difficult. Perception of norms is apparently a factor that also brings out conformity. Stereotyping and prejudice were rampant at the time Twelve Angry Men was filmed. The director and writers cleverly

Idealized Influence – defined by the values, morals, and ethical principles of a leader and is manifest through behaviours that supress self interest and focus on the good of the collective.

The term groupthink in this report is defined as, the social psychological phenomenon that results in groups during pressure situations. This social psychology theory is broken down into eight signs. Illusion of invulnerability, Collective rationalization, Belief in inherent morality, Stereotyped views of out-groups, Direct pressure on dissenters, Self-censorship, Illusion of unanimity, Self-appointed “mindguards”. According to research conducted by Irving Janis, there are three conditions to groupthink. The first, "high group cohesiveness" which is the direction for a group to be in unity while working towards a goal, or to satisfy the emotional needs of its members. Secondly, the structural faults such as insulation of the group, lack

The first juror was the foreman. He was the task leader of the group, taking initiative to sit the people down, numbering them, and telling the jurors when they could go on breaks. This juror goes over the process and rules the men will be using, and sets up the first voting. He also tries to keep the jurors on task and organized. Juror 2 is anxious man. This juror was easily persuaded to change his opinion about the case and tended to have the same opinion of the person who spoke before him. He played the role of a tension releaser which was seen when he offered the men cough drops in tense situations. Juror 3 is temperamental, opinionated, strong, loud, biased, stubborn and intolerable man. This man does not want to hear the opinions of the other jurors and is sure that the boy is guilty. He plays the part of the central negative in the group. When he doesn’t like what other people are saying he begins to yell and challenges that person speaking. He began to be dominating and blocking towards the end. Even though he did not have a statement to backup his vote, he stood alone just because he didn’t want to be proved wrong. His own problems with his son abandoning him also

Reginald Rose’s “12 Angry Men” is a testament to the power and productivity of conflict. In the same way that conflict can both help and hinder us, the ego/identity and relational based conflicts, and the competitive and avoidance approaches to conflict interfere with the group coming to consensus, yet at the same time galvanize these 12 angry men.