12 Angry Men

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Memory Construction Memories are not remembered how events actually happened. When memories are withdrawn from our memory bank, they are based on what must have been, determining on what we now believe or know. Therefore, we construct "our memories to suit our current knowledge." In the movie "Twelve Angry Men," the lady testified against the boy who was accused of murdering his father. This lady claimed to see this man being murdered by his son. However, we can not trust that the details she describes are true because when we withdraw our memories, they are constructed to fit our beliefs. For whatever her reasons, the lady believed the victim's son was the murderer. Therefore, the description she remembered fit the characteristics of the son.

Conformity Conformity is a change in behavior or belief as a result of real or imagined group pressure. Once Fonda influenced most of the jury members to stand with him on his position, it wasn't too difficult to convince the remaining few to stand along with them.

For example, I believe the advertising executive would have gone along with the majority. It didn't really matter which position the majority stood for. He felt pressure to go along with the popular position. You could see this in him because he kept changing his position from "guilty" to "not guilty." He couldn't make a decision and stick to it.

Prejudice Prejudice is a negative prejudgment of a group and it's individual members. The accused murderer was from the slums. What if the accused murderer was a highly respected, rich businessman? Would the jury be more inclined to question if he was guilty or not? The boy from the slums was easily assumed guilty by the jury because he was from the slums and considered garbage to society. They...