12 Angry Men Essay

The movie "12 Angry Men (1957)" directed by Sidney Lumet, involves many important Social Psychology theories and concepts. In Psychology 241, these concepts are reviewed to explore the basis of psychology in social situations. In this report, I will explain my observations of the film. Of course, others may have different viewpoints and this is why an open-ended discussion, as seen in the movie, would be beneficial to ensure a broad understanding of the film. The very first observation I made was that 11 of the jurors acted as cognitive misers, taking part in the confirmation bias, during the prosecution. These 11 men, normally motivated tacticians according to Kruglanski (1996), became cognitive misers due to a lack of time, importance, and
This can be seen during the first vote where some jurors look doubtful as they slowly agree to a "not guilty" verdict when they see everyone else come to that conclusion. Culturally, in class we covered that it is more accepting to be unique in an individualistic culture vs. an interdependent culture. Not surprisingly, since this film takes place in America, #8 does not conform in the first vote. So, an interesting question that I thought of was: "Would this hypothetical situation be possible in Eastern Asian (Interdependent) cultures?". From what I have learned in class, my answer would be no. These cultures put pressure on people to conform to the majority, leading to less creativity and/or originality. Furthermore, I was able to observe group psychology. The jurors are a relatively homogeneous group of white men, and the theory of groupthink says that the more homogeneous a group is, the greater the pressure is to conform to the majority view. This happened throughout the film, as more and more mean began to join the "not guilty" perspective. In conclusion, this film is an excellent example of the way Social Psychology theories/concepts manifest our social situations and the ways we respond to