A Short Summary

The film 12 Angry Men is a classic example of Psychological theories which

prevail in the society. It revolves around a group of 12 Jurors who have to
decide whether the accused person is guilty of Murder or not. Initially, the ratio
of Guilty:Not Guilty was 1:11. Slowly as we progress, we see that the Jurors are
convinced to change their decision to Not Guilty

Now lets see what all it is about and what are the necessary observations we
conclude from the Movie

We come across to see in the initial stages of the film that how Social images
have a role to play in the decision of the Jurors. Few of them start of Ofcourse
he is guilty. The power of Normative Social influence is seen in the jurors to
convince others that the Boy was guilty. Some of the Jurors, as we see were
limited by time as they had their own personal work and so casted vote as
Guilty to go by the Majority which said Guilty. We see for real how Sometimes
facts and logical questions are good enough to change a decision of an
individual where he Casts his vote from Guilty to Not-Guilty by abiding to the
points Juror 8 had put forward. Few of the Jurors present there had their own
perception and many were basically going with the Majority. Perception is
basically how we look at things and develop an idea about it and we see a clear
idea of that in Juror 1 and Juror 8.
Persuation is an integral component of Attitude
and we see clearly how it shapes the movie. We see persuation and also to
some extent a sense of Coercive power when on the Juror tells another
Nobody told you to prove Otherwise as if he wanted to punish the Boy and
when he saw that the Juror was saying he might be guilty or might nor be and it
can be proved otherwise. We see that One Juror says that a guy who was living
beneath the room of the heard noises of a probable fight and then saw buy
running down the stairs out of the house and when he goes up, he sees the old
man lying dead on the ground and call up the Police to inform about it. Now
another juror potrays his Referrent powers as he didnt even wait for this turn to
come and jumped forward to speak about the lady who had seen the murder
happening to which Juror 8 promptly says that how can we believe a lady who
was on a passing train, that too in the dark of hours and not believe the boy to
which the juror says I see you are a wise man . This shows us the power of
persuation and how he was able to channelize his idea through that juror. One of
the Juror , upon asked his views told he would remain silent. He could be easily
persuaded and manipulated as determined by his facial expressions. Another
Juror tried to put forward his ideas in the way of a leader saying about the past
activities of the boy and that he wouldnt be astonished if the boy was found
guilty. Juror 8, to the above line , said that the boy was always hit like this by
his father and now Two Three slaps or shots from his father would not have
affected him anyway to commit murder of his father to which we again see how
the idea of Persuation is coming into the picture. Also persuation can be clearly
seen when all of them agreed to go by a secret vote as decided by Juror 8 and
we clearly see how the persuation of Juror 8 had affected the Jurors as one of
them Voted Not Guilty and supported Juror 8 and the case went on for further
discussions. Juror 8 was a masterful negotiator. With his Persuasive Skills and
Charisma, he is able to influence all the Jurors slowly. When the Topic of the
Lady on the train had came up, he used his Referrant Powers and said about
how when train passes by, nothing can he heard at all and its not possible to
hear the old man shout because when the man living beneath the room says that
he heard him, the train was passing by. The Jurors had opposed by saying that
nobody cares about a fraction of second to which Juror 8 uses his leadership
skills and Persuation and tells that a decision which can put a boy on the electric
Chair should be that accurate. Juror 3 was seeking Power and was not liking
how Juror 10 was persuaded by Juror 8 and starts misbehaving with Juror 9.
Juror 6 rises to the occasion and uses his Powers and Authority to tell Juror 3
that if he misbehaves again, he will be thrown up. We then see how Juror 5 was
persuaded and convinced by the Facts put forward by juror 8 and changes his
vote to Not Guilty. Juror 11 was a close observer of the entire situation and he
made notes of whatever Juror 8 was saying and had raised an important
question by what he perceived of the entire situation that if he actually killed his
father, then why would he at all return back home after 3 hours. After again few
heated up arguments, another vote is casted and those who vote Not Guilty were
told to raise their hands up and Juror 11 watched closely who all raised and was
Influenced and Convinced enough to raise his hand to Not Guilty. So the idea of
Persuation and Convincing others based on power of Speech and Authority is
quite visible along with the idea of Expert Power where we see people are
actually following him here as we proceed to the end. Now when Jurors were
slowly changing their decision, the remaining Jurors were basically having no
further points to speak on and were yelling Why dont you focus on the facts.
One of the Jurors said the old man took 20 seconds to run to the door and see
the boy ran out but they said he told 15 seconds. On further questions, juror 3
said that he was an Old man and he was times confused and he would not
probably be sure of anything. Saying this, there was Pause as if the Juror 3 spilt
out the beans that somewhere even he knew they dont have enough evidences
but the idea of getting proved wrong and diminish of Power was not acceptable
to him. Juror 8 proved by setting up the exact scenario and with his Rational
Ideas and Expert Powers showed that the Old man couldnt have taken 15
seconds and must be more and when he opened the door, he ASSUMED he saw
the boy ran out. Juror 3 reacts in a way as if he was in dire needs of Power but
was continuously being proved wrong and losing support and was about to end
up in a fight with Juror 8 when he told him that he was acting like a pubic
appointed avenger and was behaving like a sadist thus understanding how
sometimes people in a Group demand some Power. After this incident we see
Juror 2 and Juror 6 change their Vote to Not Guilty. One interesting thing which
we see is the Foreman i.e Juror 1 has no Leadership qualities. He was just doing
what people present their was telling him to do. He had no say in any decision
and till now was just playing the role of a person who was tallying the Guilty vs
Not Guilty. Juror 10 was saying to raise Consensus that the Boy s background
nature was bad and he should be punished to which Juror 9 says that
background doesnt have anything to do here to which he shouts saying Facts
has nothing to do with it to which Juror 9 says that is what Juror 8 was trying to
explain till now that being in a state of Confirmation Bias that people raised in
slums are potent bad guys is wrong and he thus Juror 10 contradicts his own
statement of not to go by facts. The remaining Jurors who voted Guilty were not
Trying to Forcefully Channelize their ideas through the people but failing
miserably. Juror 8 throughout portrays Leadership Qualities. Juror 8 says that
when the Police asked the Boy about the Movie he watched because he had
claimed he was at the movie, he was not able to say anything about the Movie
because he was under huge emotional stress knowing his father had died. When
Juror 4 tries to contradict him, again he was able to put forward his points with
facts and rational ideas and proved that under such emotional Stress, its natural
to forget such information thus leading by example again and was able to
embed his ideas in the mind of Juror 4. Later when the doubt of the eyesight of
the Lady who saw the Murder was questioned, slowly all of the Jurors were
convinced that the Boy was Not Guilty, We see how leadership is portrayed in
the Movie and how with his Convincing and Persuasive Skills, Juror 8 was able
to channelize his ideas through the mind of all the Jurors present there. The jury
situation portrayed in 12 Angry men had a lot of symptoms that would normally
lead to a Groupthink phenomenon. The majority of the group had a belief in the
moral correctness of their decisionthey were punishing a bad person, they had
a stereotyped view of the people who opposed them. There was extreme
pressure to conform and the decision was not made in unison(at least in the
beginning), many of the jurors didnt voice their opinions initially and strong
personalities that were trying to push the group in a certain direction was quite
Observable. Despite these symptoms, the minority was able to override the
majority and sway the vote to NOT GUILTY by exemplifying extreme
Leadership Qualities and Power of Persuasion and Influence and how to use
facts with a cool mind and how to channelize his ideas through the minds of
others.

This was our Analysis of the Movie 12 Angry Men . I hope we were able to
do Justice to it. However we are open for Corrections and New Learnings.
Thank You for giving us this Opportunity to work on this Assignment.