A group can be defined as two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, who come together to achieve a particular objective. In the movie 12 Jurors come together with the sole obligation of concluding if the young man was guilty of murdering his father or not, beyond reasonable doubt. This group of 12 men who did not know each other walked into the room to discuss this case, showed the first sign of groupthink, as they had already formed the perception of unanimity.Through the movie the group dynamics are on show with both the groupthink and group shift phenomena, the influencing and role play that form the structure of Group beautifully displayed. Analysis of the movie From the very beginning the group dynamics get into play, in the beginning of the movie, when they walk into the room, some of them, Juror 12, Juror 7, Juror 3 and Juror 8 try to make small talk, introduce themselves, and begin to learn a little about one another.
During this stage in the movie, jurors discuss the view, old buildings, hot weather colds, and some even share what they do for a living. One juror shares about his Beck and Call messenger company – the first stage of group development begins. At the start all the 12 men are clueless as to how to begin the task. It is only when the foreman takes on his tasks, he takes on the role gets the room organized by asking all to take seat and start the proceedings. He then explains the role of each, as 12 votes are required and re iterates that it needs to be a unanimous decision.He takes the lead and asks for a show of hands.
The eleven to one vote identifies the problem – normally in a public forum people shy from non conformity. This leads to sneers from other jurors – we atleast know where we stand or we need to convince him (views or influencing behavior by asserting from dominant jurors). Thus leading to a Brainstorming stage in the group discussion. The group had all kinds of personalities. The ad.
man juror 12 was a nominal personality (he suggested they go round the table taking every one’s view).The start of voting had displayed a very high consistent behavior when without discussing a single shred of evidence eleven of the 12 jurors agreed to the boy being guilty only one – juror 8, had the conviction to follow the rational route. The group quickly agreed to convict the boy as they were doing collective thinking (a group makes decisions faster than individuals) and also the individuals were not accountable separately. So like juror 7 wanted to go quickly to watch a game and juror 10 knew already that they would vote unanimously and they would all quickly leave.None of them but for one thought of thinking through the various pieces of evidence before reaching the conclusion.
He uses various influencing methods to make the group go through the evidences. While the movie follows the path of rational thinking , it is not an immediate change. From the show of hand vote which led to an eleven to one split decision it moves to ten to two when the ballot is a secret ballot. This led to heavy outburst from the rest of the group still confirming, showing resistance to a deviant thought.
Juror 3 and 10 at this point exerted heavy pressure on juror 8 and 9.Also interesting was when juror 5 abstained from giving a reason, may be he was not convinced of the group thinking at this time and yet was not ready to break the mold. While juror 8 followed the rational path to examining the evidence in a brainstorming, the discussion also revealed the various prejudices that the other jurors came with in the discussion. Juror 10 had a bias against people from the slums and generalized that all people living in slums were criminals and should be banished from society. Juror 3 had the baggage of pain of his son and was taking it out on this boy.
