12 Angry Men Decisions

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12 Angry Men portrays a story about a boy who is on trial for allegedly murdering his father. However, it is not about the boy. Instead, this story is about the twelve jury members’ deliberation and how they come to the verdict of “not guilty.” Yet, this was not an easy decision, and a lot of conflict brought them to a place where they could all agree on a verdict. Furthermore, these jury members handled the conflict very differently. Of the five ways of handling conflict, namely avoiding, accommodating, compromising, competing, and collaborating, all five were used by different members of the jury. Through examining how the different members of the jury handled the conflict, the viewer of the film can determine how a unanimous decision was …show more content…

Even though he was very set in a guilty verdict, it was for very objective reasons. He was not angry that people were voting not guilty; he just did not understand why they were, and was willing to talk it out and try to convince them of his side. Due to his objectivity, Davis and the other jurors voting not guilty had to come up with better arguments, which ultimately led to a more informed decision being made. This would not have happened if juror #4 was not willing to collaborate to find the best option. Along with jurors #4 and #8, jurors #9 and #11 were also primarily collaborators. They both gave arguments for why they believed what they did, and did not fall into competition. However, in the beginning they started off as accommodators because they voted guilty along with the group even though they did not seem convinced. This collaboration eventually helped others join the not guilty side as …show more content…

Jurors #3 and #10 were the main champions of the guilty side, both for personal subjective reasons. For #3 it was the history he had with his son, and for #10 it was his racism. They both cared about the task a lot, but did not care at all about the relationships with the other jurors. They were willing to yell and scream a lot to try to win a guilty verdict, but eventually, through collaboration by the others, they realized that they were actually in the wrong. Juror #6 was also a competitor. However, he did so in a manner that allowed space for the collaborators to actually collaborate. By fighting back against the other competitors, some of the more timid jurors (like #9) felt safe enough to give their opinion because they knew that he had their