Impression Formation in '12 Angry Men': A Stereotypes Perspective

This essay explores the psychological process of impression formation, specifically focusing on the role of stereotypes, within the context of the film '12 Angry Men'. It investigates how the jurors' initial impressions of the accused were shaped by factors such as social prejudices, social influence, and social categorization, rather than rational arguments. The analysis highlights how deeply rooted social biases, personal assumptions, and manipulation by other jurors influenced the decision-making process. The essay also draws parallels between the film's portrayal of impression formation and real-world scenarios where individuals are often judged and stereotyped based on superficial characteristics like caste, class, gender, or physical appearance. Ultimately, the essay argues that '12 Angry Men' serves as a valuable illustration of how stereotypes impact our perceptions and judgments of others, emphasizing the importance of logical observation over personal assumptions.

Running head: Impression formation
IMPRESSION FORMATION

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Impression formation
12 angry men is an American film that belongs to the genre of courtroom drama. In the
film, one teenage boy was accused of murdering his own father and the responsibility of the
ultimate decision making fell upon the 12 jurors who were present in all the trials where two
witnesses claimed that the boy was guilty of murder (imdb.com, 2019). Now, irrespective of
many evidences in support of the accused boy, all the jurors decided to vote for the fact that the
defendant was guilty except one juror (juror 8). The formation of the collaborative judgment of
the 12 jurors was based upon their initial impression about the accused boy and not on any
rational set of arguments.
Impression formation refers to a psychological process that insists a person to give an
overall impression about an individual by integrating certain information about that person.
Among many aspects of this impression formation, one of the important aspect or effect is
stereotypes effect. In this study, it has been investigated how the stereotypes effect worked in the
movie to form an impression about the defendant that he was guilty of murder.
There was one particular scene when everyone, except one juror, voted that the accused
was guilty without going into any rational argumentations. Some of the jurors voted just because
they were either in hurry or so much bored that they did not want to think rationally about the
case (Marlow, Dabbish & Herbsleb, 2013). However, there were some jurors who came up with
the judgment that the boy was guilty on the basis of their deeply rooted social prejudices.
Social prejudice is a form of stereotyping where people perceive another person by
evaluating not their personalities but by judging where they come from. For example, in the film,
Juror 10 says people belonging from slums should not be trusted and that they can murder
anyone just for fun (Frasca, Ravazzi, Tempo & Ishii, 2013) Now, social prejudice is very much
visible here that hints at how stereotyping is formed based on personal biases or opinions.
Apart from that, social influence works as another factor that helps the process of
stereotyping to be initiated. This influence can be seen in the decision making of most of the
jurors that were manipulated by the judgment of juror 3. This happened because other judges did
not have any strong argument to hold on to and for that reason they decided to follow juror 3 and
join in the process of stereotyping.

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Impression formation
In the real world, it can be noticed that people like or dislike others before spending time
to know them. They do that because they give more importance to their personal assumptions
and not to logical observations (Marlow, Dabbish & Herbsleb, 2013). As an outcome, process of
discrimination generates in the mind of the people. This process can seriously impact the
stereotyping effect. This can be visible in the film when Juror 3 showed personal desire to
punish the accused because he belonged to slum.
On the other hand, another juror criticized a juror because he thought that that particular
juror had sympathy for the slum dwellers. According to Rhodes (2013), stereotyping results from
social categorization that affects personal feelings or behaviors. The jurors stereotyped the
accused boy because he belonged to a marginalized section of society regarding which people
have many baseless assumptions. Furthermore, the judgment of juror three was influenced by his
personal experience with another teenage boy who happened to be his own son. He was against
the not-guilty vote because he had bad relation with his son and thus he assumed that the accused
was also as bad as his own son. This is also a kind of stereotyping process where people form
impressions based on a superficial judgmental process.
So, in this study the notion of stereotyping process as an aspect of
impression formation has been investigated in the context of the 1957 movie 12 Angry Men. This
has been found that the movie and specially its characters show how people form impressions
about a random individual on the basis of social prejudices, social influence and social
categorization. The movie does not show whether the accused boy is really guilty of murder or
not in the end although the gradual process of impression formation has been illuminated
throughout the film. This can be visible in real life also where people judge and then stereotype
other people on the basis of their caste, class, gender, poverty level or just physical appearance.
Thus, this film is a perfect example to understand the psychological process of impression
formation in real life.

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Impression formation
Reference list
imdb.com, (2019), 12 Angry Men, Retrieved on: 14th March, From:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050083/
Marlow, J., Dabbish, L., & Herbsleb, J. (2013, February). Impression formation in online peer
production: activity traces and personal profiles in github. In Proceedings of the 2013 conference
on Computer supported cooperative work (pp. 117-128). ACM. Retrieved on: 14th March, From:
https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10038300
Rhodes, M. (2013). How two intuitive theories shape the development of social
categorization. Child Development Perspectives, 7(1), 12-16. Retrieved on: 14th March, From:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.360.9153&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Frasca, P., Ravazzi, C., Tempo, R., & Ishii, H. (2013). Gossips and prejudices: Ergodic
randomized dynamics in social networks. IFAC Proceedings Volumes, 46(27), 212-219.
Retrieved on: 14th March, From: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1304.2268