Let Us Now Praise Lone Dissenters: 12 Angry Men and the Devil's Advocate

The film 12 Angry Men is a claustrophobic tale of what happens during jury deliberations following the trial of a young man accused of killing his father. Although the trial itself is not shown, from the opening moments of the film it is clear that the overwhelming opinion of the jury is that the defendant’s guilt was proven beyond a reasonable doubt; his conviction would appear to be virtually guaranteed.

However, an initial vote on guilty/not guilty ends up 11-1. There is one lone dissenter who replies that he voted not guilty not necessarily because he believes in the innocence of the accused, but rather because he believes that the fate of one man’s life deserves at least an hour of discussion of the facts.

It doesn’t take long to reveal that many of the men have come to the jury with predisposed prejudices, personal reasons for ending the proceedings without thoughtful deliberations, or other psychological problems that may affect their judgment. The relevant scene for this paper occurs shortly after the second vote and the surprising revelation that there are now two men in the room not yet ready to instantly convict the accused without at least studying the evidence more closely. This scene was chosen to study the dynamics of social influence, especially the influence of a lone dissenter on social conformity.

Any large dynamic group will naturally exhibit signs of either conscious or subconscious conformity. The psychological principle of conformity as it relates to social influence is basically an exertion on the will of another person to act in a manner that is not in accordance with one’s actual beliefs. Many different studies of conformity as a result of social influence have been conducted, revealing that almost all conformist responses to social influence can be narrowed down to three types: compliance, identification, and internalization.