12 Angry Men – Analysis of Communication Barriers

SUBMITTED BY
Kritika Kushwaha (16PT2-08)
PT-MBA
Oct-16 Batch
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Overview

In a New York City courthouse a jury commences deliberating the case of an 18-year-old

Hispanic boy from a slum, on trial for allegedly stabbing his father to death. If there is

any reasonable doubt they are to return a verdict of not guilty. If found guilty, the boy will receive

a death sentence.

In a preliminary vote, all jurors vote "guilty" except Juror 8, who argues that the boy deserves

some deliberation. This irritates some of the other jurors, who are impatient for a quick

deliberation.

After a log discussion and multiple rounds of voting, jurors eventually decide on “not guilty”.

In this report we will discuss the communication barriers of all 12 jury members.

Juror 1

He tries to organize the entire discussion and give it a structured approach. He facilitated the entire

proceedings of the discussion be it casting a secret ballot or allowing everyone to voice their opinion.

However he did not provide with any specific inputs to the entire discussion.

Juror 2

From the beginning until the end of the discussion, the juror #2 didn't participate much preferably

listening to others arguments. We can say that the personality of this jury is passive and sometimes

he had no idea from what he argued. For example, when 7th juror showed a knife, situation became

chaotic but he didn't bothered much. One of the reasons why this juror became passive is probably

because of he never be experienced become juror entire of his life.

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All these factors are interrelated and relatively affect decision making process because it may

influence to reliable and a quality decision. Therefore, when this juror became over-passive, he

decision making would be affected by whole.

Juror 3

For him it was internal noise and stereotyping that were the major communication barriers. He was

in high negative effect of emotional stage. His anger we find the fact his son, who he feels is a

coward. He also mourned the distance that has grown between him and his son. Scott believes that

his son should respect him the same way he honors his father, and rose with an iron first. He never

questioned that maybe so should see the relationship with his son from another point of view.

Also he keeps mentioning how “kids from slum” are potential criminals.

He is quick to lose his temper, and often infuriated when Juror #8 and other members disagree with

his opinions. He believes that the defendant is absolutely guilty, until the very end of the play. Also,

he took it as a personal fight, assuming that the juror 8 is disagreeing with him only because he

wants him to loose.

Juror 4

The barrier that will affect the 5th jury decision making process is the environment at the jury room

and he has to deal with the other jury's attitude before make a good decision. It is not easy to settle

the case because everyone has a different view and different personality. With so much heated

argument, he was having difficulty in concluding. he is very eloquent and looks at the case more

coherently than the other jurors through facts and not bias. He is steadfast in the belief, but he did

not try to persuade others to change their minds forcibly.

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Juror 5

He is from the Harlem slums; he connects with the man at trial and is disgusted at the bigotry of

Juror Ten. Initiating Horewood's character was a follower of the group. He voted "guilty" during the

first vote, and then showed reluctance to discuss the case.

 Perhaps with the knowledge he had accumulated by living in a slum gives the upper hand

throughout much jury because he can relate to it. Naturally background jury five assists him in

making a wise decision. Experience will make good decision making. But, not all of the experience

can apply in the dependant case. That is the barrier was happening to this character. He has to find

other information and take others view as advantage to make a right decision.

Juror 6

He is a house painter, a respectful person who stands up for different jury members in the movie. At

first he voted for guilty. He showed inconsistency in making decision where finally towards the end

of the movie he switched his verdict to not guilty .It happened after he listened up to some useful

and some reasonable doubt raised by juror 8 and strong facts raised by all non-guilty-related jurors.

The uncertainty avoidance is so high where environmental factors such as peer pressure really

influence in his decision making.

Juror 7

He is a salesman. He less concerned and less committed in this premeditated homicide case. As a

result he is not able to concentrate. Also the environmental factors kept him distracted throughout,

till he switches on the fan. His participation is merely to say his stands and how his personal

judgments toward the deliberation process. He is mostly concerned of his baseball tickets and

sometimes ignores what is happening in the room. Instead of yelling nonsense and unreliable facts

just to express his stands, he is frequently argued to anyone that tries to give point of view. Now, his
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assumption depends on his institution where I believe it's due to a lesser number of 'non-guilty'

voters. In addition, it shows inconsistency (dissonance) and overconfidence bias as part of his

verdict. These attributes has contributed to a very fundamental decision making of him.

Juror 8

He is indeed the main protagonist of the film. At the very first minute and stage of the movie, he is

the only juror who voted not guilty. Each and every word delivered by him shows how precisely and

concisely determined. He showed his seriousness to deliberate the case thoughtfully and honestly as

proposed by head-judge earlier. For instance when he says "I just don't find it easy to raise hand and

send a boy to prison for life". He is always being attacked with "dangerous bullets" from those jurors

who voted differently, but has shown an ethical and extraordinary feedback. His emotional

intelligence has successfully closed the barrier of differentiation. Such determination (non-guilty

decision) has brought to an issue of re-deliberation of the case. The only barrier that he could have

had would have been internal noise, as he was seen lost 1-2 times in the movie.

Juror 9

He is a wise old man who firstly decides that the kid was guilty. But later on when he heard some

logic thoughts and clarification from jury's number 8, his verdict turn into not guilty. Then, he

becomes close friend with jury's number 8. In this movie, the personality that we can see in Jury's

number 9 is he such an openness guy, he displayed kindness personality as the oldest in jury's

meeting; he also has curiosity to further "develop" the case. For example, when he decided to

change his mind into not guilty. His barrier was fear to be failure. Every person have fear, because

sometime people start to rejecting a good idea just because it shows that the result might be 100%

failure, although its only come from their thought, but because of fear to taking the risk, they tend to

avoid the idea that might bring into successful. The reason that they try to reject risk is because they

cannot handle when someone's telling them "I told you so, don't do this, don't do that."
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Juror 10

He was loudmouth, narrow-minded bigot, extremely rude and often interrupted people. He

stereotypes people. He keeps talking about how these kids from slums are, about their upbringing

and their values and the fact that they cannot even speak in English. He do not have a good in

imagination, that he cannot imagine and cannot understand easily what the others think, he tend to

think that he is the only one who are right, he cannot except his mistake and tend to stick with his

answers. Other than that, he also score low in agreeableness when always insulting others and

disrespect the elders. He tends to show that he not interested with others people problem and also

with a filthy mouth he talk recklessly about everything. It's hard to find the solution when a person

cannot listen and accept others opinion and always think that he the only one who is right. It leads

to tight arguments within them. For example in this movie, we can most of them feels dissatisfy to

jury's 10- in terms of his overall attributes.

Irrelevant idea- this is also one of the factors that create the barriers into decision making. Some

people might fail to generate a good idea at the certain and specific time. They not even helping

when they try to produce the idea that we know is irrational, but because they want to perceive as

idea provider, they tend to raise argument-able ideas which is just make decision making process

complicated.

Juror 11

He works as watch maker most of the time is doing an observant in this movie; He is an immigrant

based on his essence, possibly from Europe country. He believe and hopes that America can give a

justice and he want to see how it done. In addition he also introverts person because most of the

time in the meeting, he just being quiet. He is not an integrity person, which he cannot decide where

he stands with, weather with guilty or not guilty side; this is the answer for his value. Most of the
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time he did the observation, but lastly he also try to give his opinion and give a question for

everyone to think. Barrier for him, he was holding himself from expressing.

Juror 12

He is among the juror that portrays no-interested, passion about the case at the beginning. He is

busy about his own personal matter rather than further participating in the discussion. He is

marketing agency and sometimes demonstrates his arrogant in this movie. His personality would be

narcissisms where he liked to make people looking at him not for the quality of the job. He was busy

doodling and playing tic tac toe.

He was distracted from the case. His attitude was not good and like selfish because just think about

him but not think about the case that was really heavy to make decision. The mood and atmosphere

in the room affects the decision making from him-summer time. It contributes to no-quality decision.

His judgment is based from what he heard from the other jurors not and try to figure out to find

other alternatives. Sometimes, he always busy with his career rather than the case.