12 Angry Men Analysis
CBEB 2303 ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR 12 ANGRY MEN: MOVIE ANALYSIS TABLE OF CONTENT NO| SUBJECT| PAGE| 1| Synopsis| 1| 2| Characters| 2| 3| Factor affecting decision making process: * Attitudes * Personality and values * Emotions and moods| 3-44-89-11| 4| Other barriers affecting decision making| 11-12| 5| Conclusion| 13| 6| References| 14| 1. 0 SYNOPSIS/SUMMARY: 12 ANGRY MEN The story is basically about 12 men (jurors) urged by the judge to come to an agreement as a to whether the defendant is guilty or not.
The judge explains the obligations of the jurors, and after given the instruction, the jurors shall discuss thoroughly among themselves. They must return with a vote either guilty or not. And of course they should have proper evidence or theory to back their opinion. At the beginning, all except the 8th juror voted guilty.
Everyone is shocked and there was a request for all the 11 juror to speak their opinion in order to change the vote of the 8th jury. Since the court hearing are not shown, viewers have no options but to focus on each of the jurors opinions and points.
This story is about how each of the jurors perceive the murder case and solve it. There are several factors that affects an individual decision making process and each factor plays a different role in influencing people, and how these factors build individual’s perception. The factors are personality, values, attitudes, emotion and moods. Throughout this movie, we can see how the 12 juror are affected by these factors in coming to an agreement as a whole.
2. 0 CHARACTERS Juror| Actor| Characteristic| 1/Foreman| Courtney B.
Vance| * Football coach * Organized person| 2| Ossie Davis| * Bank clerk * Logical person| 3| George C. Scott| * Small business owner * Grudge, excited, hot-tempered| 4| Armin Mueller-Stahl| * Stock broker * Wise, not bias, focus on evidence, logical| 5| Dorian Harewood| * Work in Harlem hospital * Easily-offended| 6| James Gandolfini| * House painter * Patient, fair, respects other people| 7| Tony Danza| * Selfish, loud| 8| Jack Lemmon| * Architect * Reasonable, see things at every angle| 9| Hume Cronyn| * Old man * Good observer, wise| 0| Mykelti Williamson| * Racist, closed-minded, arrogant, bad tempered| 11| Edward James Olmos| * Watchmaker * Calm, fair, takes a man’s life seriously| 12| William Petersen| * Work for Marketing agency * Couldn’t decide for himself, very dependant| 3. 0 FACTORS AFFECTING DECISION MAKING PROCESS 3. 1 Attitude In this part, we will analyse how the attitude influences the decision making of the jurors.
According to business dictionary, an attitude is a tendency to respond either positively or negatively towards a certain idea, object, person, or situation.
Attitude influences an individual’s action, responsiveness, incentives, and rewards which is called stimuli. In order to better understand attitudes, we must consider their fundamental components. There are three components of attitudes: cognitive (a description of or belief), affective (emotional or feeling) and behavioural (intention to behave in certain way toward something). What is the attitude of the twelve juries in making decision of the given case? Well, at the beginning of the movie, the motivation or goal of the juries was to complete the task as soon as possible so that they could go home.
During this situation, the cognitive omponent is “cannot go back home unless agreed as a whole”. The affective component is “tension of finishing the task as soon as possible so that can go back home earlier”. The behaviour component is “just vote for guilty”. This is how their attitudes toward their job and resulted in their behaviour. However, the attitude of the 8th jury contradicted with the attitude of other jurors. The eleven juries voted that the defendant is in guilty except him.
He doesn’t just believes that the defendant is not guilty but actually he is just trying to make decision by tackling the situations in other angles and perceptions.
This means his attitude toward his job is positive. The cognitive component of his attitude is “the decision taken should be highly reliable and sensible”. The affective component is “responsibility for the decision made”. The behavioural component is “don’t vote for the decision which said the defendant is in guilty without discussing related matter”. As seen in the movie he was arguing with the valid information for the group to consider, expresses his point of view and make inquiry as to any differing perspectives and additions.
In beginning this makes others angry because he is the only man who is holding others back. As the story unfolded, more valid information was uncovered by various members of the group and members of the group changed their votes to not guilty. Over the story going on, some changed their decision because they has convinced with the viewpoint given by the person who is an architect. But the 7th juror has changed his vote to not guilty because he doesn’t want to stay any longer. The cognitive component of his attitude is “the conversation is taking too long and if keep on arguing cannot come to an end”.
The affective component is “follow the wind so that can finish task earlier”. The behavioural component is “change my vote to not guilty as others have started doing so”. He does not felt responsible for the defendant’s life. The German watchmaker scold him for his attitude, quoting “What kind of man are you? You cannot do this. You cannot play like this with a man’s life. As for the third juror who is not convinced until ending of the film.
His attitude of believing the defendant is in guilty is very strong and unchanged even after most of jurors changed their vote.
The cognitive component of his attitude is “it is very obvious that the defendant killed his father because of his background”. The affective component is “he felt angry on the defendant who killed his father because he relates to his own child”. The behavioural component is “I will not change my vote”. This attitude is developed due to the bad relationship with his own son.
3rd Juror is the last to be convinced, he only changes his vote once he realizes that he is only projecting his feelings about his own son towards the defendant. 3. 1 Personality and Values Each actor have different personality and values.
This movie exposes how a person’s personality can impact others in decision making process. Personality is related to how an individual reacts and interacts with others. It comprises the feelings, thoughts and behaviour itself.
Personality is what differentiates individuals, and understanding someone’s personality would gives us some guide about how a person is likely to act and feel in a various situations. There are several personality measurement scales that can be used to explain the jurors personality. The most famous method is the Myers- Briggs type indicator (MBTI).
This personality measurement tools are used to closely predict which jurors are active, and recognised the factors affected in decision making, whereas values contain a judgmental element in that they carry an individual’s ideas as to what is right and lawful. Values lay an understanding of people’s attributes and what influences their perceptions. 1) The Myers- Briggs type indicator (MBTI) In this personality assessment, individuals are classified as extraverted or introverted (E or I), sensing or intuitive (S or N), thinking or feeling (T or F), and judging or perceiving (J or P).
Based on the movie : 1st Juror/foreman 1st Juror serves as the foreman of the jury. He took his responsible seriously and wants to be true and fair. He has the ESFJ personalities because he is well organized. He can be said as realistic, logical, analytical and decisive. He runs activities smoothly where he made a page to vote.
He also listens to everyone’s opinions carefully before reacting. He had done a good job to keep the rest of the jurors on track with his authority and personality. 2nd Juror This jurors is not independent and could not explain the roots of his opinions.
He is more towards introvert, sensing, feeling and judging (ISFJ) personality. When the plan for talking around the table in order changes, he begins to continously lose interest and did not contribute much on the discussion.
3rd Juror 3rd juror probably relates the case to his personal life too much.. When he is trying to prove a point about the defendant, he is actually relating to his own son whom he had a rough relationship with.. This juror is extrovert, sensing, feeling and judging (ESFJ). His is used to getting things done his own way and enjoys being in control.
He’s intolerant of other people’s opinions.
He sometimes contradicts his earlier argument, which means he probably talks before he thinks. He based his opinions more on emotions rather than facts and he was the last to change his vote to not guilty. 4th Juror This juror is introvert, intuitive, thinking and judging (INTJ). He based his opinions on evidence.
He’s independent with his points while others are influenced by emotional appeals. He uses logic and reasoning to backs his opinions. He was relying on evidence to support his position that the boy on trial is guilty and didn’t have a convincing evidence to show otherwise.
He is logical and often the one who breaks up pointless arguments and engage in rational discussion. He pointed out that on the night of the murder, the boy bought a uniquely carved switchblade knife identical to the one used in the murder.
The boy claims that he lost it that night, before coming home to find his father stabbed to death with that knife. He presents the death weapon as “only one of its kind;” but the 8th Juror surprises the others by presenting an identical knife he had purchased in a pawn shop near where the boy lived.
This proves that the claim that the knife was unique and identifiable as false. He only changed his votes to not guilty when the witness’s testimony is discredited. 5th Juror This juror is introvert as he was unable to express his point efficiently. This juror did not explain why he voted guilty at first, but later into the discussion he eventually opens up with his own ideas and opinions about the case.
He gets angry over 10th Juror’s for citing the boy’s slum background as evidence for his being “trash”, because he is from there himself and is actually trying too hard to forget that. 6th Juror
This juror is suits for introvert, sensing, thinking and perceiving (ISTP). He stays quiet, letting more extroverted jurors do a lot of the talking, but he do speaks up if something strikes him. He is basically slow in deciding the good sides however he eventually agrees with 8th jurors that the boy is not guilty. 7th Juror He is extrovert, sensing, feeling and perceiving type. He was very impatient because he was trying to catch a baseball game and wants to finish in time.
He is loud, yelling his opinion without facts to defend them. He behaves very emotionally and quickly takes offense.
He likes to make a statement but does so childishly and does not actually care about the boy’s life, as he concerns more about the baseball game 8th Juror Juror 8 played the key character. He was the only one who votes not guilty from the beginning. This juror is introvert and relies on intuition a lot of the time. He wants the facts to be ordered and structured.
He stand with his believe and at the end, he made the rest of his fellow jurors to agree with him by explaining his points. He was a quiet and thoughtful at the first half, probably because he is trying to understand each of the jurors ersonality. He is concerned about truth and justice, and also tries to see things from every different angle. This juror also have a proactive personality where he identify the opportunity, show initiative, take actions and persevere until meaningful change occurs. 9th Juror This juror is introvert, sensing, feeling and judging type. He is very old, but wise compared to most of other jurors but he noticed very specific details about witnesses that many others failed to do.
He was the first to change his vote to not guilty. 10th Juror Extrovert person as he is outspoken loudmouth with strong opinions.
He prefer routine and order to handle problems. He got his own understanding of the situation where it is actually clouded by his strong racism towards the defendant. He had a racial outburst and loses the ears of the others. Most of the jurors are disgusted and turn their backs on him.
He is openly bitter and prejudice. His opinion revolves around his racism most of the time 11th Juror He is introverts and follows intuition likes to think and perceiving (INTP). Even before he votes not guilty, he raises questions about whether or not the boy would have come back to the scene of the crime.
He doesn’t really believe he has to be loyal to one side or another, he’s just asking questions generally. He takes a man’s life seriously and gets upset when the other juror changes his vote without any reason. He is also quick to correct the other jurors when they get their facts wrong.
12th Juror This juror is easily distracted and spends his time doodling. He was insecure of his opinions and is the only member of the jury to change his vote multiple times. He is basically and extroverts, intuitive, feeling and perceiving type.
He likes to talk, coming up with new ideas, but he cant express himself and when hit rock bottom, he plays it safe and simply say “I don’t know” This movie shows how personality of an individual plays an important role in decision making process. 3. 3 Emotions and Moods Based on the book Organizational Behavior,by Stephen P.
Robbins and Timothy A. Judge, there are 3 terms that are closely intertwined, and that terms are affect, emotion, and moods. Affect is defined as a broad range of feelings that people experience, and it can be experienced in the form of emotions and moods.
Emotions are intense feelings that are directed at someone or something. It is caused by specific event and usually, emotion comes and goes fairly quickly.
Moods are feelings that tend to be less intense than emotions and often lack a contextual stimulus. Compared to emotions, moods last longer in duration. Generally, moods are not indicated by distinct expressions. 1st Juror Juror 1 is a high school football coach. The emotion that been shown by Juror 1 is superior emotion.
We can see that emotion from the way he manage the jury’s meeting. He is serious and wants to be as fair as possible..
From the emotion and mood displayed by him, he can make a rational judgment where he chooses that the boy is not guilty in the last part of the meeting. 2nd Juror Juror 2 is a bank clerk. He lacks confidence, easily persuaded by the opinion of others and cannot explain his own opinion.
This shows that he is scared, worry, uncomfortable with the other jurors. His mood is lethargic, thus he can’t participate well in discussion. 3rd Juror Juror 3 is businessman who owns a small business. Actually, his character is the opposite of Juror 8. He is the antagonist in the movie.
He had a bad relationship with his son.
So that is why his emotions are excitable, in rage, and angry towards the boy. He relates too much towards the defendant, and that matter clouded his judgement. 4th Juror Juror 4 is a stockbroker. He is a well spoken, logical jury in this movie. He looks at the case more coherently than the other jurors.
In terms of emotions and moods, he is confident and relaxed. But at the last of moment of the meeting, he vote that the defendant is not guilty because of witness’s testimony is discredited. 5th Juror He is a hospital worker. He grew up in the slums. He feels that he is connected to the defendant because of his past.
Emotion displayed by him is nervous, because he also cannot participate well in the beginning of the meeting, maybe because he too relates to the defendant too much. At the end, he changes his vote to not guilty. 6th Juror Juror 6 is a house painter. From the observation and analysis, we found that emotion displayed by him is respectful and patient. He always listens to others even though he does not agree with some of the jurors.
After hearing during the discussion, he changes his vote to not guilty. 7th Juror He is a salesman. We can see different emotions displayed by him.
He feels annoyed with this meeting because it takes long hours to finish while his mind is excited about the baseball match. He is impatient and rude.
He wanted to end the meeting early, so he makes an insignificant decision where he totally feels that the defendant is guilty at the beginning of the meeting. 8th Juror He works as an architect. Also he is the main protagonist of this movie. He is a polite gentleman and very thoughtful. He is very confident maybe because he had done some investigations of his own.
He is the only juror that votes for not guilty in the beginning.
Many other jurors tried to change his mind with ruthless claim but he still sticks to his opinion. Eventually he persuades the other jurors to save the defendant. 9th Juror He is a wise, gentle old man. He is calm and also very thoughtful.
That is why he is the first juror that agrees with Juror 8 that this case has a reasonable doubt. Because of his calmness, he is able to understand what the 8th jury is trying to explain. 10th Juror He is a carwash owner. He is one of the strong attackers that disagree with Juror 8. He is rude and hot tempered.
We can see that from the way he slammed the toilet door.
And also how he always interrupts other people’s speech. Because of his disgusting emotions and moods, he cannot make a rational decision in which he voted that the boy is guilty. Even at the end, he just follows other jurors’ opinion because he is annoyed with the other jurors for not listening to his ill-speech. 11th Juror He is a German immigrant watchmaker. At first, he votes that the defendant is guilty.
But after hearing the speech from Juror 8, he began to develop his own reasonable doubt. He always believes in justice and that is why he tried to think over and over again for this case.
And because he respect other jurors, keep listening to what they want to say, he make a right decision at the end. His emotions and moods can be described as respectful and fair. 12th Juror He works as an advertising executive. He is arrogant maybe because he is too proud with his job.
He is not very interested with this case since he can doodle and playing tick-tack-toe with Juror 3 in the middle of the meeting. He also easily swayed with other jurors’ opinion. Because of this, he makes decision in which he votes that the boy is guilty. 4. 0 OTHER BARRIERS/ SITUATIONS
In the 12 Angry Men movie, actually there are not only just their personalities, values, attitudes, emotions or moods that may have affected the decision making process. It also relate with individual perception which is in this case refer the perception towards the defendant.
If we see from the other prospect, there has others barriers that affect their decision making such as space, time, and personal. 4. 1 Space The room where the discussion takes place can be said as crowded. According to a study published by Environmental Health Perspectives, collective carbon ioxide exhaled by all the people in a room might cause you to think more slowly. This might be the reason for why other jurors can accept the fact expressed by the 8th juror.
4. 2 Timing Timing is essential, mistiming would effect how a person perceives the situation around him. It can be seen with the 7th juror. The timing is not right for him since he has bought a ticket to watch a baseball match. He doesn’t care about the deliberating since his was disturbed.
He hope the discussion was over so he can rush to the match. At the beginning of the debate, the 7th juror quarreled with the 8th juror who voted ‘not guilty’. . 3 Personal Problem Referring to the personal problems, it can be seen from the perspective of the 3rd juror, which has had a bad relationship with his son. Due to these problems, the decision making process become difficult because for the 3rd juror, he uphold the stand that the defendant is still ‘guilty’ while referring to his situation with his son. While the jury #2, he voted not guilty even his voting is not related to circumstances grandchildren.
But it is seen that he also can’t wait to get home. 5. 0 CONCLUSION 12 Angry Men story shows how each individual makes decision.
This story focuses on how all the 12 men discussing about the murder case and deciding whether the boy is guilty or not. Beside the factors such as personality, values, emotions, attitudes and moods are affecting decision making, there also other factor that become barriers for them to make decision.
Everybody in the jury room have their own individual perception about the case. But then, they managed to solve the problem by analyzing the murder situation, be aware of bias, combine all the rational with intuition and lastly choose the best decision. And, at the last part of this story, all the 12 men deciding that the boy is not guilty. . 0 REFERENCES: 1.
http://www. gradesaver. com/12-angry-men/study-guide/character-list/ 2. http://www. gradesaver.
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Em. H. (2012). Demystifying the link between weather and mood. Retrieved 19 October,2012, from http://lifedesignexperiment. com/demystifying-the-link-between-weather-and-mood/ 5.
http://www. businessdictionary. com/definition/attitude. html 6. http://blogs. smithsonianmag.
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