Twelve Angry Men is a film that exemplafies many aspects of social psychology. In it, twelve jurors are tasked with deciding the fate of a boy accused of murder. The initial vote is eleven to one in facor of guilty. Gradually, through much intense discussion, all the jurors are swayed to vote not-guilty. The film highlights some of the key theories in social psychology, including confomityprejudice, and group polarization. Conformity is one of the first aspects of social psychology that is seen in the film. More specifically we see the idea of groupthink, or the tendancy to follow the percieved majority. Groupthink is seen almost immediately when the jurors are asked to give an initial vote. Most raised their hands in favor of “guilty,” which prompted a number of the others to follow suit. It was understood that the group would be voting one way, and anyone not sure simply did the same. The conformity aspect is seen primarily when the jurors are giving their reasons for …show more content…
It is defined as the negative attitude towards an individual based soley on their social standing. This is seen primarily through the tenth juror, who is completely blinded by his knowledge of the defendant’s rather poor upbringing. He constantly condemns the boy as “one of them,” and refuses te believes that he could be anything more than a criminal. It could also be argued that prejudice is seen in the third juror. His view is very similar to the third juror in that he feverntly insists that the defendant has to be quilty. His negative opinion, however, is a projection of his feeling towards his own son. He sees them as very similar individuals, and lets that idea take over his judgement. This prejudice, seen in both jurors, gives them a clear path by which to take dicriminatory action. Despite the fact that neither knows the defendant personally, they are both willing to let him die simply because that cannot see past thier own
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
Throughout the movie, there are a numerous types of persuasion techniques are used both effective and ineffective. One is the use of stereotypes to try to win over the votes. Saying this such as “Slums in the breeding ground for criminals” literally claiming that he must be guilty just because of where he is from. An example of an effective method of persuasion used is when juror 8 started contemplating the old man’s witness testimony and the hearing of the yelling while the load un bearable train is going by. Also about the old man’s testimony about him running to the front door through a 40 + feet hallway in about 15 seconds. Juror 8 demonstrated the old man walking down the hall and having another juror time this demonstration to prove his point and to convince the other jurors that this was indeed not possible. Another example of persuasion is when juror 8 pulls out the exact same pocket knife that was used for the murder to show the rest of the jury that it is possible that the boy was telling the truth about the knife. Even juror 12 tried to persuade the jury to somewhat sympathize for him and to still vote for the defendant guilty by talking about his own relationship with his own son. Of course, there are many more examples throughout the movie but after all these different acts of persuasion were performed you do see jurors start to doubt their original perspective.
In the play, 12 Angry Men, written by the well-known writer and producer, Reginald Rose, sets the scene in a stuffy jury room on an extremely hot day where 12 jurors must deem whether a boy is guilty for the murder of his father. The jurors struggle to reach a unanimous decision, as tension between the jurors builds up. The author delivers several clear messages through his play such as standing up for what you believe in, and always pursuing the truth. Often times personal feelings, prejudices, and fear of voicing opinions prevent the truth from being exposed.
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...
For this project we viewed the original 1957 version of Twelve Angry Men, an American Drama, adapted from the teleplay written by Reginald Rose with the same name starring Henry Fonda as the lead role.
The book said when conformity is "established, prejudice is maintained largely by inertia. If a prejudice is socially accepted, many people follow the path of least restriction and conform to the fashion. They will not act so much out of hate as out of a need to be liked and accepted". By this statement is this the reason why 11 jury members voted him guilty. Even the older jury member number 9 who defended the offender saying that only an ignorant man will believe that. However, later in the movie there was a scene that shows a prime example of conformity. When jury number 7 said I 'll tell you something I 'm a little sick of this whole thing already. We 're going nowhere fast let 's break it up and go home, I 'm changing my vote to not
Prejudice is the unjustified negative attitudes or prejudgments that some people hold against others of certain groups (Gale, 2016). Prejudice makes its way into every aspect of our lives, and importantly, in the justice system. Generally, characteristics such as age, gender, or background are prejudiced against the most. It has several causes, such as family beliefs, religious customs, cultural traditions and most importantly, societal beliefs and experiences. Moreover, the issue of prejudice can easily be identified within the justice system. Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose, clearly shows prejudice in within the justice system by the jurors towards a young, Hispanic male on trial for the murder of his father. In the novel Monster, by Walter
The author presents the screenplay 12 angry men as prejudice. Ths movie could reflect on the racism that was going on during the Civil Rights Movement. There is 12 jurors and the defendant is an 18 year old Cuban boy that was accused for stabbing and murdering his father, the jurors will decide if he is guilty or innocent. The 12 jurors will be in a room of the court and they will be there until all of the 12 jurors decide if he is guilty or innocent. Juror number 8 was the first one who voted not guilty and the other eleven jurors voted guilty and this shows that everyone can have a different perspective on how they see things. Juror number eight wanted to go deeper into the case.
a) Juror Three argued that the switchblade knife was swung down and in, which was ideal for the defendant considering he was shorter than his father. Juror Three stated, “‘Down and in. That’s how I’d stab a taller man in the chest and that’s how it was done.’” (Rose 61). This quote basically accounts for Juror Three’s beliefs with handling the knife.
This video is about a group of 12 different men who are in a jury to determine whether or not a boy is guilty of murder. Even though before each of these jurors listened to how the case was explained, they still each had their own opinions on how it actually happened. When they began juror number 8 took his stand to say not guilty. This started the conflict between each of the jurors. Everyone wanted to argue that he was definitely guilty because of what they heard in the courtroom. Juror 8 made used some valid reasoning to convince juror 9 that the boy could possibly have been not guilty. Everyone else still continues to argue that the boy is guilty. Eventually with more reasoning others begin to understand how the boy could be proven not guilty.
From the very beginning of 12 Angry Men, we are shown a jury unevenly divided, eleven of the men voting for guilty, and one voting for not guilty. This
Characters with widely different personalities and beliefs create a number of diverse and tense relationships among characters in the play 12 Angry Men written by Reginald Rose. The opposing personalities of juror number eight, juror number two and juror number three greatly influence the direction and message. The main theme is the differences of jurors, which helps to bring a more human verdict. Due to the fact that
At the outset, eleven jurors vote in favor of convicting the accused without even discussing a single shred of the evidence presented at the trial. When a group becomes too confident and fails to think realistically about its task, groupthink can occur. Since it takes a longer time to communicate and reach a consensus in a group, decision making in a group is time-consuming. Therefore, when groups want to achieve a quick decision, as several jurors were eager to do, they make riskier decisions than individuals. Since not any individual is completely accountable for the decision, members will have a tendency to accept more extreme solutions. Only one brave juror refused to vote guilty. Juror #8 refused to fall into the groupthink trap and ultimately saved an innocent man's life. He openly admits that he does not know whether the accused is guilty or innocent and that he finds it necessary to simply talk about the case. What follows is not only a discussion of the particular facts of the case, but also an intense ex...
Leaders today are lauded less for their ability to achieve compromises in governance than for their unwavering, absolute belief that their position is the right one. Our society seems to have lost its understanding that the dynamic world we live in makes little room for absolute rights and wrongs. Challenging the seemingly intransient onset of stalwartness as a standard of leadership are small but significant voices from the past, reminders that no truth we ever attach ourselves to can ever be proven absolutely true. One such challenge comes from Twelve Angry Men, playwright Reginald Roses’ ceaselessly relevant story of a jury and the moral challenges it faces in rendering a verdict. Over the course of his now famous text, Rose highlighted
“12 Angry Men” is a classic example of a movie, whose plot carries various group learning and social psychology theories. Released in 1957, the movie is about a team of 12 jurors who are totally strangers to each other, and are called upon by the judge to reach a consensus on whether to pronounce guilty or not, an 18 year old person accused of murdering his own father. A guilty verdict would lead to a death sentence and hence the onus was on the team of jurors to take a responsible call after examining all the evidences.