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
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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.

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
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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.

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.

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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 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.
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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."

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
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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 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

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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.