12 Angry Men February 31, 2014 To: Alan Fine From: Group #10: Vasiliy Grin, Nickolas Sprenkel,

Haoyu Yang, Tanner Helgren RE: 12 Angry Men This analysis paper consists of an examination of the movie 12 Angry Men and investigates the situation where a minority transforms the opinion of a majority by exerting persuasive tactics. The paper is structured as follows: Character Analysis Informal leadership persuasive tactic analysis Assessment of the jury foreman Assessment of leadership traits Character analysis In this part of the analysis I will identify each juror with a short descriptor, sentence description, and each of their personal biases. Rat Fink Leader Small Quiet Fellow Loud Angry Father The Broker Tall Ghetto Guy Upstanding Tough Guy Baseball fan The Architect Wise Old Man Grumpy Old Man The watchmaker The Businessman Rat Fink Leader Balding guy with a weak will to lead. He believes that those put in power are always right. Small Quiet Fellow This is the shy, timid looking guy with glasses. Also, he is an icebreaker. The first time he breaks the ice by offering the cough drops, and the second time by bringing up the knife-stab angle. Easily pressured by others. Loud Angry Father Opinionated man with tall hair. Sees children as always in the wrong. The broker

Calm, confident man wearing a suit with glasses. Focuses mainly on facts and logistics. Tall Ghetto Guy He is tall and rational. Was born and raised in slums so he sympathizes with boy on trial because of similar upbringing. Upstanding Tough Guy Larry is a quiet guy that wears a short sleeve button down shirt. He stays quiet a lot, speaks forcefully when needed. Defends those that cannot defend themselves. Baseball Fan This man is dressed sharply and he is very antsy. Doesnt really care about the verdict, he just wants to leave the whole time. The Architect Mr. Davis is sympathetic, calm, thoughtful, and gentle. He wears a white suit jacket. He is Angel voiced and goal oriented and is set on finding the boy not guilty. Wise Old Man Mr. McCardle is a mild, gentle, wise, and observant man. He is empathetic and analytical bringing him to be the first to support The Architect. Grumpy Old Man He is the old and bigoted man. Has a thing against foreigners and those rose by foreigners. The Watchmaker Wears suspenders and is meticulous. Takes information in piece by piece and expects others to do the same. The Businessman Has thick-rimmed glasses and at times loses focus. Easily swayed and goes with the group. Informal leadership persuasive tactic analysis This section is an analysis of the informal leaders and their persuasive tactics and the effects. The order in which they will be analyzed is as follows: Loud Angry Father The Guilty The Broker The Facts The Architect The Innocent Loud Angry Father Tactic: The Angry Man began with stating facts that proved the kid guilty. 2

Effect: The Broker went to the details much deeper and thoroughly. Also, with his emotional outbursts occasionally defeating his own arguments, his opinions soon became not credible.

Tactic: Taunting whenever someone changes vote to not guilty, or when he thinks he changes vote, or began to question the facts. Effect: He scared away his possible alliances one after another, and when he was taunted back by the Architect he totally lost his temper. He even failed to buy back the support of the Broker. Tactic: Yelling Effect: With a loud mouth and a lack of solid arguments, and since there were no chains-of-command present; he soon degraded himself to be nothing more than an annoyance. The Broker Tactic: Restating facts. At the beginning, the Broker restated the evidences in great details, attempting to solidify the facts. Effect: He provided too many details that are questionable. Tactic: Stereotype card. Going along with the Prejudiced Mans opinion, he stated the kids gutter background in a calm manner, attempting to solidify the kids killing motive. Effect: It would have worked, if not for the presence of the Slum Man that turned the subject to a political correctness issue. He chose to move away from that. Tactic: He displayed a calm personality, and only speaks when what seems to be solid argument is formed. Effect: With the far more outspoken Angry Man, Prejudiced Man and Hat Man, he was constantly disrupted from making any answers to the Architect. He appeared to be constantly annoyed by them. The Architect Tactic: Compassion card. The Architect stated that he tried to put himself in the kids position, who has been living a tough life, along with other statements like a life-anddeath decision should be not taken lightly, gaining himself the moral high-ground. Effect: He almost immediately won himself the support of the Old Wise Man, then the Slum Man who got picked on by the Angry Man, and then the Watchmaker, all of who are minorities in some ways. Later in the debate, he effectively isolated the Prejudiced Man who insisted clinging to stereotype.

Tactic: Passive attitude. The Architect first asked others to prove the kid guilty in a humble manner, paving the way for counterarguments. Effect: Opinions came to his way, making his counterargument against The Prejudiced Man and the switchblade evidence particularly effective at first. Once a few evidences were reasonably doubted, things got set in motion and other jury members began to find fallacies in other evidences themselves. Tactic: Emotion Control. The Architect began with a humble manner, established authority and counterarguments when necessary, calmly provoked the Angry Man by calling him a sadist, and asked the jury members subtly for support. Effect: He became the obvious side to turn to when the Angry Man began to lose it. Assessment of the jury foreman I this section of the paper we analyzed the jury Forman (Rat Fink Leader) and assess: His leadership role How effecting he was in being perceived the true leader Leadership Role The Rat Fink Leader was officially assigned as the groups leader with his role of jury foreman. At the beginning of the process he did take the lead. He decided where everyone would sit (by juror number) and how votes would be tallied. He was the one who decided that a preemptive vote should be taken in order to see where everyone stands. He remained open to suggestions and let the other members know this. Effective in being perceived true leader? Once the debate of innocent or guilty began and emotions started to run, he came across some difficulties and immediately threw his arms up in surrender. At one point he got so frustrated he said, Dont tell me to calm down. Here! Heres the chair. You keep it going smooth and everything. Whatdya think, its a snap? Eventually he resigned himself to being on the same level as everyone else in the jury and instead of leading the group to a decision he fell in line with the other members and sided with one of the more effective leaders. He could not be identified as a true leader of the group because he was unable to sway anyones opinion and openly relinquished his post. Assessment of leadership traits The five most important traits one can display in order to be perceived as the leader within a group in our opinion are as follows: Intelligence Judgment Self-Confidence

Desire to lead Sociability

Intelligence The ability to learn and understand. Also the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills Judgment The ability to make good decisions Self-Confidence Self-confidence is a feeling of trust in one's abilities, qualities, and judgment. Desire to lead Sincere yearning to lead others Sociability The ability to be sociable