Social Influence In 12 Angry Men

At the start of the deliberation, the jurors each vote upon their verdict to see where the others stand. The first vote is by hands which creates a similar situation tested in the Asch conformity experiments. In the experiment, people are placed in a fake pool of test-takers and are asked to identify which line correctly matches the one provided. All of the other members of the pool have been asked to give the same incorrect answer to see what the subject does. Since there was a vote by hand in deliberation, most people would have seen the majority running toward guilty and picked guilty as well. A closer inspection of the scene of the first vote reveals that several of the last hands were raised slowly, these hands belonged to jurors who were …show more content…
There are two main forms of social influence that cause people to conform to a group, informational and normative. Normative social influence causes people to conform to better fit in with the group, which results in public compliance, and is stronger in closer, more influential groups. On the other hand, the influence primarily at play in 12 Angry Men is informational social influence, which is when there is an ambiguous situation, a crisis, or the other people can be considered experts. While the other jurors are not experts, there are few situations more ambiguous than a trial and crisis lies in the fact that there is a mandatory death sentence attached to a guilty verdict and that it is predicted to be the hottest day of the year and people want to leave the warm room as quickly as possible. The overall ambiguity and conformity is best demonstrated when Juror 2 is asked why he voted guilty; he explains that he is unable to pinpoint why but that he just knows the boy is guilty. The lack of available information would lead Juror 2 to rely on others’ judgments of the scenario, assuming they are better and therefore defining informational social