Questions Pertaining to “12 Angry Men” Film:
Purpose and Objective:
The use of film can engage students and promote active learning. Films offer concrete examples for students (Kinney, 1975), and they often present human behavior in greater complexity than is portrayed in standard textbooks (Anderson, 1992).
Many instructors have been using the movie “12 Angry Men” as an integrative review of social psychology. Others (e.g., Anderson, 1992; Bolt, 1976) have suggested using this movie as an example of jury decision making or conformity pressures. Careful viewing of the movie reveals that it contains much more. The movie has examples of many different social psychological phenomena, portrayed in a complex and realistic setting. Because the movie was not made specifically to demonstrate social psychological principles, the examples are not always obvious, are often “messy”, and require students to think deeply and critically about the issues. Finally, the movie allows students to examine how situational forces can affect the behavior of individuals even though the individuals have strong and diverse personalities.
What you will complete:
As you watch/view the film, look for examples of psychological/social psychological phenomena (and be sure to take notes), such as:
| Conformity, Minority Influence, Normative Influence, Attribution Errors/Biases, Aggression, Leadership, Persuasion/Central and Peripheral Processing, Groups Dynamics and Decision-making, Deindividuation, Social Loafing, Psychology & Law, Jury Decision-Making, Fundamental Attribution Theory/Dispositional vs. Situational Attribution, Social Cognition (Overconfidence, Availability and Representative Heuristics), Prejudice, Stereotypes, Gender, Race, and Culture |
After you have viewed the film, please answer the questions presented below:
1) What are your general thoughts/impressions about the film? What psychological/social psychological themes emerged for you? By themes I mean broader ideas and the underlying meaning.
2) How does the film tie into the study/field of social psychology? What specific examples of social psychological phenomena (listed above in bold) did you notice? Please be specific and provide detailed examples (please focus on at least one of these, but of course, you can discuss more).
3) How do these phenomena/examples apply to real-world contexts/situations/settings? In other words, what are some of the real-world implications of these examples? What is the utility/importance in having an understanding of these phenomena?
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