Group-6

Movie: Twelve Angry Men

Your task for this assignment is to watch the movie ‘Twelve Angry Men’ with your group. The
movie has multiple insights related to the group decision making. Based on your understanding of
the movie, you have to answer the following questions:

Q.1. How did the group decision change from 11-1 votes for the accused ‘guilty’ to a unanimous
vote for the accused ‘not guilty’? What role did the protagonist (Henry Fonda) play in the process?
(2.5 marks)

A.1. The movie begins with the jury being retired into a room for further discussion. The customary
preliminary revealed 11-1 in favour of ‘Guilty’ against an 18 year-old boy regarding a death sentence.
The one vote of ‘Not Guilty’ is made by the protagonist, played by Henry Fonda, who is not yet sure
about the final verdict, but wants the 12 men to discuss the facts critically before risking someone’s
life.

The two modes of thinking are quite evident in the early scenes only wherein the jury members are
busy opening windows, fans, hanging their coats, talking about weather, doodling, going to
washroom and other such tasks, whereas Henry is seen standing at the window, contemplating. The
rest of the members follow System One thinking, or Intuitive thinking, doing the mundane tasks,
but Henry performs Reflective or System Two thinking, and is also seen quoting that the ‘stakes are
very high’, thus giving more focus to the discussion between the men.

As the discussion started to unfold, there were two sides formed, the 10 members who decided the
verdict to be guilty, and the Jury member 8 and 9 who had voted for non-guilty to carry on a
constructive critique of the case. Due to the formation of 2 sides, throughout the complete movie it
was witnessed that there was contest among the two, for the guilty side to subdue the non-guilty
side. The group was in the Advocacy mode, wherein Jury member 3 and 9 were constantly
discouraging and dismissing the arguments of the others. Henry played as important role to
transform the conflict from advocacy to the Inquiry mode, and reach the conclusion collaboratively.

The group functioned in steps. Initially they grasped the facts for 6 court days, and most of them
noted it down. When others focussed on the details mentioned by witnesses, word-to-word, Henry
and a few others (Jury member 11) tried to question the motives and facts, for instance how could
the old man have heard the voice through the ceiling if the elevated train was passing through, or
why did the kid return back to the house after murdering his own father. The next stage was to
apply their experience, knowledge and reasoning to delve deep into the discussion. Here Jury
member 5 and 9 showed started to raise points about using the shift knife and the marks on the
nose of the woman witness. This stage helped the group to reach the reasonable doubt phase,
where every member started thinking critically and debating vigorously about how the facts were
presented and how wrong they could’ve been if someone had not paid close attention to them. This
led to breaking up of natural coalitions that were formed due to the majority of the group turning
from guilty to non-guilty verdict, and challenging the Jury members to re-visit the same facts again
with a new view or opinion.

The most important detail revealed by the movie was that how people take key decisions based on
their past experiences or prejudices and how difficult it is for them to accept it. Jury member 10’s
initial conversations commenced by referring the alleged murder as ‘one of them’. His continuous
use of terms like ‘they’, ‘these people’ were a perfect instance of how his preconceived notions
about slum people swayed his decision making skills, when he was confusing an individual with a
group (slum). He could only understand his flaws when everyone shunned away from him, because
as mentioned by Jury member 4, it was difficult to fix errors we can’t see.

The group began to break away the biases that all of them had one by one. Saliency bias present
most prominently within the group, as all members were looking on hard facts and not trying to
verify them. The old man couldn’t have heard the conversation upstairs due to the el train, the
woman could only see a blur since she probably did not have her spectacles, and the old man could
have mistaken the person dashing down the staircase with the boy. But these doubts crept into the
minds of the members after Henry forced them to, but initially they were clouded with salient facts.

Overconfidence bias or Optimistic bias was another easily visible throughout the movie. After the
preliminary vote, many members simply state their reason as ‘the facts seemed so’. The members
were convinced that the lawyers had done their job and the defence lawyer had not questioned,
which meant there were no doubts left. Yet other members claimed that the witnesses had given
their statement positively and with no contentions. But Henry revisited the statements and also
enacted one of them to prove that they couldn’t have been perfected, he kept questioning them.

Henry was the visibly most important jury member, as without him, the jury would’ve concluded to
end the life of a possibly innocent man, without any reasonable doubt. From a lone wolf, Henry
questioned and convinced the other members through stating logic to convert the decision & bias.

Q.2. Compare and contrast the way minority voice was handled in the movie vis-a-vis the
“Challenger Launch” case. What were the (dis)similarities between the approaches of the
dissenter in the movie and in the case? (2.5 marks)

In the movie the minority voice was that of Henry, while in the ‘Challenger Launch’, it was that of
Rogers, both to avoid loss of human life. The similarity in both the movie and the case was that the
conflict was handled in the advocacy mode. Ideally it should’ve followed the inquiry mode since
both were very sensitive issues, involving rick of life. The motive of the members in both the
decisions seemed to be convincing or persuading & lobbying the minority, not evaluating the facts
and options available. The members in discussion in both defended their positions but did not
remain open to alternatives. They reacted violently in case of flaws, and did not accept criticisms.

The decisions in both the situations were influenced by group think, in the movie when Jury
member 12 keeps on oscillating between his decisions according to the group, or others voting
through secret ballot to maintain themselves in the group, without much thought to the issue; in the
case since most of the members of the conference didn’t have a chance to speak and followed the
group’s decision only.

To discuss about the dissimilarity, in the movie there was logic provided by the minority whereas in
the latter only one base point was discusses, other phrases were unprofessional and unconvincing.
In the case, power distance played a major role. The logical arguments were the reason behind the
defeat of biases in other’s minds, which did not take place in the Challenger case. Unlike Henry who
played out the scenes in his mind and made an imagery for others to understand the same, Rogers
used phrases like ‘act away from goodness’, ‘looked worse’ instead of proving his valid points. The
lack of data backed, quantifiable information within a power distance between Rogers and the
NASA officials was the reason behind failure.