All twelve of the jurors in the film have very different
personalities. According to the textbook "Human Communication in Society:
Jess K. Alberts", one of the seven main components of the communication
process are the participants (pg 12). If there are a large number of
participants that have different personalities, it will be very difficult
to have a successful conversation. This proved to be true in the film, as
it took the twelve men very long to come to a mutual agreement. During the
process of coming to an agreement, the men were very frustrated and
Another main component of the communication process also
played a role in the difficult decision the twelve men had to make. Noise
is any stimulus that can distract the sender and receiver of the message
(pg 12), and there were many distracting stimulus in the setting that the
men were in. The extreme heat of the room, the cough that juror 4 had, and
the rain that came in the room midway through the jury's decision-making
were noise that the men had to compete with. If there were a smaller number
of jurors and all of their personalities were similar to each other's, and
the noise was eliminated, the men could have made a decision faster and
Juror #1 (Martin Balsam) served as the foreman of the jury. He
is in charge of mediating the conversation and keeping the men under
control. He is a non-confrontational character and kept the decisions made
by the jury fair by having the jury vote. Although he was serious about his
foreman role, his laid-back personality could not keep everyone under
control at all times. If he were a little more assertive, the jury would
have come to a conclusion faster and some of the arguments they had would
have been eliminated. With men on the jury with personality types such as
Juror #3 (aggressive, confrontational), the foreman should have been more
assertive to keep the conversation under control.
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