Two Angry Men Review

The movie in 1957, Twelve Angry Men, illustrates various theories related with social psychology, in which the group dynamics is mainly focused. It depicts a group of jurors with the task of determining whether a 19-year-old boy is guilty or innocent for murdering his father (Rose & Lewenstein, 1982). The group process within this movie is quite attracting, which highlights the theories of group dynamics. In this paper, several aspects of this movie combined with the theory of group dynamics are under discussion, such as the group stage, the influence of individual biases and so forth.

Within this situation of jury, it could be regarded as a special form of group process. However, this group is with its own unique features, as it is constituted by a number of regulations and purposes, which are quite different from the normal groups in the daily work. As for this purpose of group, it aims to achieve an absolute agreement for determining whether the boy is innocent or not. It indeed works as a team to experience different stages. However, within this group, it is with unique features, of which is the diverse background. Twelve jurors are from different backgrounds without knowing each other, who shoulders the task of determining the result through deliberation.

Within this case, the individual biases leave significant influence on the group. The members within group are under the impact of the personal biases, which originates from the personal experiences and feelings. Among those people, Juror #3 and #10 are the most typical ones.

As for Juror #3, the biases of him are from the experience of his own son, who hit his face and run away from home. Therefore, a feeling of condemns and resentment is shown towards the 19-year-old boy in the court. As for Juror #10, his biases deeply root in his racial discrimination of dividing people into poor class and rich class. As the boy is born in slums, the characters of being evil is preset by Juror #10.

Once the individual biases are formed, it is apparent that those Jurors with personal biases tend to insist their opinions without reasonably considering the fact. Under this situation, the jurors with personal biases spare no efforts to reinforce his point of view and attract others to support his ideas.

Therefore, the conformity is amplified when the above two jurors are with negative personal biases towards the 19-year-old boy. From the followers’ perspective, the interpretation of a specific ambiguous condition from others is much more sensible than their own (Armstrong & Berg, 2005). When the jurors start to cast their first vote, hesitant attitude is prevailing during the most of the eleven jurors who vote guilty. Under this situation, when the above two jurors are with strong and fierce individual biases, the atmosphere of conformity prevails, which impacts the total votes of the jurors. Moreover, when the larger proportion within the group is established, the group polarization emerges, which acts as a way to strengthen the existing dominant part (Sunstein, 2002). The initial discussion result leads to the tendency of other group members to vote for the guilty verdict.

Honestly speaking, it is of great difficulty to persuade others. It is in large demand of bargaining power to persuade others’ perspective. Out from the certainness of the innocent fact of the boy, Davis spare no efforts in persuading others with the help of multiple resources as well as skills in deconstructing the case. It is a gradual process in persuading others through different stages of group.

All the groups, no matter in a healthy manner or not, are inevitably under different stages of development. According to Tuckman (1965) as well as combined with the specific situation of the twelve people group, its stage could be divided into the phases of forming, norming, storming, performing and adjourning.

Within the forming stage, the initial communication is more likely to be superficial in order to reject confrontation. The judge in this movie plays the role of leading this stage, informing the jurors that they shoulder the responsibility to reach a consensus about whether the 19-year-old boy is innocent or guilty. As for the norming stage, the rules and boundaries are combined and established. For this group, these jurors start to negotiate each other, which are largely based on their biases and ideas. Then these negotiations come to a commonly accepted rules of behaviors by others. For the stage of storming, multiple personal affairs are brought to table during this discussion, which causes a series of reasons. The characteristics of human beings are vividly shown, including Juror #7, a baseball fan and Juror #1, a school coach. Then the natural leader, Juror #8, delivers his ability to maintain his point. Within the performing phase, the second vote is performed and it focuses more on the tasks than merely listening to each other. During this stage, the logic and other persistence persevere over emotions and prejudices as well as personal biases.