Student Essay on 12 Angry Men

When a jury is assigned to convict a man for murder in movie "12 Angry Men" by Sidney Lumet there are many assets and liabilities of a group that play a role in their decision making. The jurors are all defined in terms of their personalities, backgrounds, prejudices and emotional tilts. When pride, jealousy, frustration and prejudice all emerge we see irrational and rational decision making methods.

The assets of group is shown when juror#8 starts a different approach to evidence by showing the knife that was thought to be rare. It starts the process of participation in problem solving by other jury members who may have made up their mind or were just feeling conformity pressure. Greater sum of individual's total information starts to helps jury make a better decision.

Liabilities of a group are show when every one except juror# 8 raise their hand feeling conformity pressure. There is desire of individual shown by juror# 3 to dominate and win the argument rather than finding a best solution. Lack of interest is shown by juror# 7 to reason or spend time to solve problem. There are prejudice feelings shown by juror# 10 and 7, they think juror# 5 and 11 do not know much because of their backgrounds.

Each group determines assets and liabilities of their group's problem solving. As long disagreement is not personal and is in interest of best solution it's healthy. Time required to solve a problem is uncertain, members might get impatient and solve problem without reasoning. Risk taking is either good or bad depending on how a group uses it. Each group has a different problem to solve and different personalities to work with which is why each group can use assets and liabilities positively and negatively.