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In the classic film Twelve Angry Men, Henry Fonda portrayed a juror who was firmly convinced that a
criminal defendant was not guilty. The only problem was that the other 11 jurors believed the defendant was
guilty. As the jurors began to deliberate, Fonda held fast to his belief in the defendantʼs innocence. As the film
progressed, Fonda convinced each of the other 11 jurors that the defendant was innocent. The jury finally
returned a verdict of not guilty.
In this fictional portrayal of a group at work, a single unwavering individual not only was able to resist
conformity pressure but also convinced the majority that they were wrong. Such an occurrence would be
extremely rare in a real trial (Kalven & Zeisel, 1966). With an 11 to 1 split, the jury would almost always go in
the direction of the majority (Isenberg, 1986; Kalven & Zeisel, 1966). The film, however, does raise an
interesting question: Can a steadfast minority bring about change in the majority? For almost 35 years after
Sherifʼs original experiments on norm formation, this question went unanswered. It was not until 1969 that
social psychologists began to investigate the influence of the minority on the majority. This line of investigation
has been pursued more by European social psychologists than American social psychologists.