One Minority Man
There are many examples of social influence and group behavior in the movie Twelve Angry Men. Some of these concepts that appear often are how the ‘majority men’ use argumentative strategies to further polarize their group’s opinion, how the ‘one minority man’ was treated, and how the peripheral and central route of persuasion―especially in the case of prejudice―was used.
The story is about twelve men on a jury for a murder case in 1954. A low-class eighteen-year-old boy is convicted of murdering his abusive father. They are the ones to decide whether or not he will get the death penalty. Initially, all but one man believes the boy is guilty. This one man demonstrates minority influence tactics by confidently holding true to his side, yet also remaining open minded. As the movie progresses, he exponentially persuades the group that there is reasonable doubt that the boy is guilty and therefore should not be charged as such. This influencer and various other men used the central-route persuasion tactic to logically analyze
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Yet after this said comment, the ‘majority men’ decide to share their opinions first instead. As they go down the line, those in favor of the death sentence get stronger in their beliefs—up to a point. Yet, in summary, these men using this tactic of persuasion also find themselves to be victims of it. One of Juror #8’s arguments was that “Everybody in court sounded so positive…[there were] so many good things, but none bad?” He recognized that the opposing side wasn’t exactly addressed in the courtroom. There were just too many ‘positive’ arguments for the boy being guilty, and not enough for him being not guilty. Now there’s a recipe for a polarized