12 Angry Men PSY-362 Assignment for Psychology PDF

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The assignment was to watch a movie and point out parts of it that relate to the different topics discussed within social psychology. I received an A on the assignment...

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Topic 7: Groups and Aggression 12 Angry Men For this assignment, you will need to watch the film, 12 Angry Men (1957, Orion-Nova Productions). The film brings to life many of the concepts covered in class to date. Below, please provide specific examples from the film to support your ideas/claims. Integrate at least two expert sources and be sure to include proper APA citations within your document and at the end (reference section). Note: Most of this information can be pulled from your textbook. You may type directly into this worksheet. Each answer must be substantial and include some detail if you want to earn full credit. Be sure to define the concepts. 1. Discuss patterns of persuasion, conformity, and minority influence witnessed in the film, providing specific examples. Persuasion: There were many instances of persuasion throughout the movie, but especially in the beginning. Juror number 8 was the one that voted not guilty. All the other jurors went around and stated why they thought the kid was guilty. They were trying to persuade juror number 8. Then juror number 8 stated why he thought the kid was not guilty and was able to persuade the other jurors that they aren’t able to say if the kid is guilty without some sort of doubt. Juror number 3, who originally thought that the kid should be sentenced to death, was persuaded that there is some doubt in the evidence. These situations show how strong persuasion can be. Conformity: Conformity is a form of mimicry in which we change our behavior in response to pressure from other people around us (Gilovich, Keltner, Chen, & Nisbett, 2018). One situation that showed conformity in the movie was during the preliminary voting. Most of the people immediately put their hand up to show they think the kid is guilty. However, there were a few people who looked around first, then they too put their hand up to vote guilty. The people who looked around first were most likely pressured by the fact that other people voted guilty, so they too voted guilty. This shows how the actions of people around us can affect our behavior. Minority Influence: Minority influence can be described as when the majority, or general population, is exposed to a consistent position of the minority group (McLeod, 2018). In the movie, it is clear that the minority is the vote for not guilty. There is only one man that voted for not guilty while all of the others voted for guilty, which makes the minority not guilty. Then, after the majority questions the minority about his opinion, the minority has an influence on the majority. Then, the majority questions their opinion, which changes their view from guilty to not guilty.

Other social influences: One other type of social influence that I thought was very prevalent was emotion. I found this especially important with juror number three. Juror number 3 had his own emotions with his son that took over what his opinion was about the case in front of him. Then, at the end, the juror ripped up the picture of him and his son. Then he realized why he did this and he ended up changing his mind to not guilty. Emotions can be very strong and alter our opinions and behavior. The juror’s personal life was affected how he was looking at the case, and once he let go of his emotion he was able to see how he truly felt about the situation and change his opinion. 2. Analyze issues of stereotypes and prejudice observed while watching the jurors deliberate. There are many to choose from! Example 1: The first example I found was when they talked about the slum being a breeding ground for criminals who are menaces for society. This is basically saying that just because a person comes from a bad place means that they are a criminal. This is unfair because everyone’s situation is different and not all bad situations lead to bad people. Example 2: The next example was when they said the kid is angry because his mom died and his dad is in jail. They are basically saying that because the kid grew up in a bad situation means that he will become a terrible person. Again, everyone’s situation is different and usually, people make the best out of a bad situation and end up doing amazing things. Example 3: Another example I found was when they said, “They all get drunk and bad someone who is lying in the gutter. If someone gets killed, they don’t care.” Basically, this is saying that people who are in the slum don’t care about bad things caused by their actions. They’re comparing this to when the kid couldn’t remember the movie he had just seen, but this was probably due to the emotion the kid felt from his father’s death. Example 4: The last example I found was when the jurors said, “That woman is just one of them.” The jurors were basically just stereotyping all people that come from the slum, even though it is later revealed that one of the jurors said that he is from the slum. This just goes to show that stereotypes are not always true and people can group up differently that was is assumed. 3. In psychology, heuristics are simple, efficient rules which people often use to form judgments and make decisions. They are mental shortcuts that usually involve focusing on one aspect of a complex problem and ignoring others. Determine if there was evidence of cognitive heuristics and label it (e.g. availability, false consensus, social proof). Discuss where/how it occurred. Heuristic 1: The first heuristic I found was when the father and the son were arguing before the murder, which showed that the kid had motive. Then, juror number 6 just assumed that because of this, the son automatically had a motive and did not need any more evidence to vote that the kid was guilty. Heuristic 2: Another heuristic I found was a general heuristic that occurred throughout the whole movie, which was that almost all of the jurors just took the evidence as is and did not really look into it. They just assumed that the evidence was legit and that this meant the boy was guilty.

Heuristic 3: The last heuristic I found was when the old man heard the phrase, “I am going to kill you,” in the conversation between the father and son. Because of this, many jurors took this at face value as direct evidence that the son was guilty. Then later during an argument between two of the jurors, this same phrase was heard so it made the other jurors question if that saying was really something that showed that the son was guilty. 4. Interpret the catalyst of change that resulted in the outcome of the film, based on your perceptions. How does this line up with some of the research in social psychology? There were many catalysts of change throughout the movie that changed the verdict from guilty to not guilty. The first one that I found was when juror 8 pulled out a knife that looked exactly like the murder weapon, when it was previously thought that there was no other knife that looked the same as the murder weapon. The second catalyst occurred when there was the secret vote and juror 9 changed his vote so that juror 8 could prove his stance, as well as the fact that juror 9 was questioning his original verdict of guilty. Then, the third and last catalyst was when there was the question about the eyeglasses, which led to many of the people changing their opinion or at least it swayed their current opinion of guilty. 5. Discuss if the group in the film demonstrate group polarization. Were they at risk for groupthink? Explain: Group Polarization: I found that group polarization was used in the film. First, it was used to strengthen the opposing viewpoint when the jury was trying to get juror 8 to change his opinion to the majority, which ended up not working. This ended up flipping and group polarization was used to strengthen the not guilty viewpoint. Although there was group polarization, it was presented differently so it may not have seemed like group polarization. Group Think: I believe that the jurors were at a very high risk for groupthink due to there being so much conformity. However, groupthink did not end up occurring because the jurors were very set in their own beliefs instead of being affected directly by what the other jurors thought. Even though there was a possibility of groupthink occurring, it did not.

References Gilovich, T., Keltner, D., Chen, S., & Nisbett, R.E. (2018). Social psychology (5th ed). New York, NY: W.W. Norton Publishing ISBN-13: 9780393667707 McLeod, S. (2018). Moscovici and Minority Influence. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/minority-influence.html...