12 Angry Men

organizational behavior

Group Dynamics of Theatrical Film 12 Angry Men

April Hord, Joanne Huebner, Laura Morgan and Eunjin Yoo

Virginia Commonwealth University

Introduction

In Greek mythology, there are the twelve Olympians who are the principal gods of the Pantheon and the apostles of Jesus were twelve. In Oriental philosophy, one of twelve animals is assigned to everyone depending on the year when they are born. The animal represents their personality and propensity which affect their fortune and destiny. The Zodiac signs are also twelve in Western astrology. The viewer can see twelve different personalities or characteristics in the jury in the film 12 Angry Men. Each characteristic emerges over the course of the movie rather than being evident from the beginning, and each juror affected the team activities in his own way.

A team is defined as “structured groups of people working on defined common goals that require coordinated interactions to accomplish certain tasks” (Forsyth, 1999). The goal of the twelve men was a consensus about whether a defendant was guilty or not guilty. In order to produce the outcome, the men interacted with each another. Schwarz, Davidson, Carlson, & McKinney (2005) state that the factors contributing to group effectiveness can be measured on a continuum and are a function of three factors: group process, group structure, and group context. This paper will describe how the theatrical film, 12 Angry Men, illustrates member roles in teams, literature concepts of teams, team development, alternative models of group development.

Illustration of Group Member Roles

The roles of each team member, for successful team performance, are to contribute to the goal of the team and interact with other team members. Bradley and Herbert (1997) stated that the ideal team should have diversity of talents and knowledge as well as maintain open and non-threatening communication. Although there were no assigned...