what did robbers cave experiment show

Robbers Cave Experiment | Realistic Conflict Theory

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The Robbers Cave experiment, conducted by Muzafer Sherif in the 1950s, studied intergroup conflict and cooperation among 22 boys in Oklahoma. Initially separated into two groups, they developed group identities. Introducing competitive tasks led to hostility between groups. Later, cooperative tasks reduced this conflict, highlighting the role of shared goals in resolving group tensions.

The hypotheses tested were:

When individuals who don’t know each other are brought together to interact in group activities to achieve common goals, they produce a group structure with hierarchical statuses and roles.
Once formed, two in-groups are brought into a functional relationship under conditions of competition, and group frustration, attitudes, and appropriate hostile actions about the out-group and its members will arise; these will be standardized and shared in varying degrees by group members.

Study Procedure

Phase 1: in-group formation (5-6 days).

The members of each group got to know one other, social norms developed, leadership and group structure emerged.

Phase 2: Group Conflict (4-5 Days)

The now-formed groups came into contact with each other, competing in games and challenges, and competing for control of territory.

Phase 3: Conflict Resolution (6-7 Days)

Sherif and colleagues tried various means of reducing the animosity and low-level violence between the groups.

The Drinking Water Problem

The problem of securing a movie, realistic conflict theory.

Realistic conflict theory posits intergroup hostility and conflict arise when groups compete for limited resources. It emphasizes that competition over scarce resources (material goods, power, or social status) can lead to prejudice, discrimination, and animosity between groups.

Resource Scarcity and Competition : When groups perceive that they compete for limited resources, hostility can arise.
Formation of Ingroup and Outgroup Dynamics : Through competition, groups develop a strong sense of “us” (ingroup) versus “them” (outgroup). This distinction can lead to negative stereotyping and increased animosity.
Superordinate Goals : Intergroup hostility can be reduced when conflicting groups collaborate on goals that neither group can achieve on its own. These goals supersede their smaller individual goals and encourage cooperation.

Critical Evaluation

Key takeaways.

In the Robbers Cave field experiment, 22 white, 11-year-old boys were sent to a special remote summer camp in Oklahoma, Robbers Cave State Park.
The boys developed an attachment to their groups throughout the first week of the camp by doing various activities together, like hiking, swimming, etc.
The boys chose names for their groups, The Eagles and The Rattlers.
During a four-day series of competitions between the groups prejudice began to become apparent between the two groups (both physical and verbal).
During the subsequent two-day cooling-off period, the boys listed features of the two groups. The boys tended to characterize their own in-group in very favourable terms, and the other out-group in very unfavorable terms.
Sherif then attempted to reduce the prejudice, or inter-group conflict, shown by each group. However, simply increasing the contact of the two groups only made the situation worse.
Alternatively forcing the groups to work together to reach common goals, eased prejudice and tension among the groups.
This experiment confirmed Sherif’s realistic conflict theory (also called realistic group conflict theory), the idea that group conflict can result from competition over resources.

Further Information

Allport’s Intergroup Contact Hypothesis: Its History and Influence
Aslam, Alex. “War and Peace and Summer Camp.” Nature, vol. 556, 17 Apr. 2018, pp. 306-307.

What Was the Robbers Cave Experiment in Psychology?

A Landmark Study on Group Conflict

Martin Barraud / Getty Images

Archaeology
Ph.D., Psychology, University of California - Santa Barbara
B.A., Psychology and Peace & Conflict Studies, University of California - Berkeley

The Robbers Cave experiment was a famous psychology study that looked at how conflict develops between groups. The researchers divided boys at a summer camp into two groups, and they studied how conflict developed between them. They also investigated what did and didn't work to reduce group conflict.

Key Takeaways: The Robbers Cave Study

The Robbers Cave experiment studied how hostilities quickly developed between two groups of boys at a summer camp.
The researchers were later able to reduce the tensions between the two groups by having them work towards shared goals.
The Robbers Cave study helps to illustrate several key ideas in psychology, including realistic conflict theory, social identity theory, and the contact hypothesis.

Overview of the Study

The Robbers Cave experiment was part of a series of studies conducted by social psychologist Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues in the 1940s and 1950s. In these studies, Sherif looked at how groups of boys at summer camps interacted with a rival group: he hypothesized that “when two groups have conflicting aims… their members will become hostile to each other even though the groups are composed of normal well-adjusted individuals.”

The participants in the study, boys who were approximately 11-12 years old, thought that they were participating in a typical summer camp, which took place at Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma in 1954. However, the campers’ parents knew that their children were actually participating in a research study, as Sherif and his colleagues had gathered extensive information on the participants (such as school records and personality test results).

The boys arrived at camp in two separate groups: for the first part of the study, they spent time with members of their own group, without knowing that the other group existed. The groups chose names (the Eagles and the Rattlers), and each group developed their own group norms and group hierarchies.

After a short period of time, the boys became aware that there was another group at camp and, upon learning of the other group, the campers group spoke negatively about the other group. At this point, the researchers began the next phase of the study: a competitive tournament between the groups, consisting of games such as baseball and tug-of-war, for which the winners would receive prizes and a trophy.

What the Researchers Found

After the Eagles and Rattlers began competing in the tournament, the relationship between the two groups quickly became tense. The groups began trading insults, and the conflict quickly spiraled. The teams each burned the other group’s team flag, and raided the other group’s cabin. The researchers also found that the group hostilities were apparent on surveys distributed to the campers: campers were asked to rate their own team and the other team on positive and negative traits, and the campers rated their own group more positively than the rival group. During this time, the researchers also noticed a change within the groups as well: the groups became more cohesive.

How Conflict Was Reduced

To determine the factors that could reduce group conflict, the researchers first brought the campers together for fun activities (such as having a meal or watching a movie together). However, this didn’t work to reduce conflict; for example, meals together devolved into food fights.

Next, Sherif and his colleagues tried having the two groups work on what psychologists call superordinate goals , goals that both groups cared about, which they had to work together to achieve. For example, the camp’s water supply was cut off (a ploy by the researchers to force the two groups to interact), and the Eagles and Rattlers worked together to fix the problem. In another instance, a truck bringing the campers food wouldn’t start (again, an incident staged by the researchers), so members of both groups pulled on a rope to pull the broken truck. These activities didn’t immediately repair the relationship between the groups (at first, the Rattlers and Eagles resumed hostilities after a superordinate goal was achieved), but working on shared goals eventually reduced conflict. The groups stopped calling each other names, perceptions of the other group (as measured by the researchers’ surveys) improved, and friendships even began to form with members of the other group. By the end of camp, some of the campers requested that everyone (from both groups) take the bus home together, and one group bought beverages for the other group on the ride home.

Realistic Conflict Theory

The Robbers Cave experiment has often been used to illustrate realistic conflict theory (also called realistic group conflict theory ), the idea that group conflict can result from competition over resources (whether those resources are tangible or intangible). In particular, hostilities are hypothesized to occur when the groups believe that the resource they’re competing for is in limited supply. At Robbers Cave, for example, the boys were competing for prizes, a trophy, and bragging rights. Since the tournament was set up in a way that it was impossible for both teams to win, realistic conflict theory would suggest that this competition led to the conflicts between the Eagles and Rattlers.

However, the Robbers Cave study also shows that conflict can occur in the absence of a competition for resources, as the boys began speaking negatively about the other group even before the researchers introduced the tournament. In other words, as social psychologist Donelson Forsyth explains, the Robbers Cave study also demonstrates how readily people engage in social categorization , or dividing themselves into an ingroup and an outgroup.

Critiques of the Study

While Sherif’s Robbers Cave experiment is considered a landmark study in social psychology, some researchers have critiqued Sherif’s methods. For example, some, including writer Gina Perry , have suggested that not enough attention has been paid to the role of the researchers (who posed as camp staff) in the creation of group hostilities. Since the researchers usually refrained from intervening in the conflict, the campers may have assumed that fighting with the other group was condoned. Perry also points out that there are potential ethical issues with the Robbers Cave study as well: the children did not know they were in a study, and, in fact, many did not realize that they had been in a study until Perry contacted them decades later to ask them about their experience.

Another potential caveat to the Robbers Cave study is that one of Sherif’s earlier studies had a very different result. When Sherif and his colleagues conducted a similar summer camp study in 1953, the researchers were not successfully able to create group conflict (and, while the researchers were in the process of trying to incite hostilities between the groups, the campers figured out what the researchers were trying to do).

What Robbers Cave Teaches Us About Human Behavior

Psychologists Michael Platow and John Hunter connect Sherif’s study to social psychology’s social identity theory : the theory that being part of a group has powerful effects on people’s identities and behaviors. Researchers studying social identity have found that people categorize themselves as members of social groups (as the members of the Eagles and Rattlers did), and that these group memberships can lead people to behave in discriminatory and hostile ways towards outgroup members. However, the Robbers Cave study also shows that conflict isn’t inevitable or intractable, as the researchers were eventually able to reduce tensions between the two groups.

The Robbers Cave experiment also allows us to evaluate social psychology’s contact hypothesis . According to the contact hypothesis, prejudice and group conflict can be reduced if members of the two groups spend time with one another, and that contact between groups is especially likely to reduce conflict if certain conditions are met. In the Robbers Cave study, the researchers found that simply bringing the groups together for fun activities was not enough to reduce conflict. However, conflict was successfully reduced when the groups worked together on common goals—and, according to the contact hypothesis, having common goals is one of the conditions that makes it more likely that conflict between the groups will be reduced. In other words, the Robbers Cave study suggests it’s not always enough for groups in conflict to spend time together: instead, the key may be to find a way for the two groups to work together.

Sources and Additional Reading

Forsyth, Donelson R. Group Dynamics . 4th ed., Thomson/Wadsworth, 2006. https://books.google.com/books/about/Group_Dynamics.html?id=VhNHAAAAMAAJ
Haslam, Alex. “War and Peace and Summer Camp.” Nature , vol. 556, 17 Apr. 2018, pp. 306-307. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04582-7
Khan, Saera R. and Viktoriya Samarina. “Realistic Group Conflict Theory.” Encyclopedia of Social Psychology . Edited by Roy F. Baumeister and Kathleen D. Vohs, SAGE Publications, 2007, 725-726. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412956253.n434
Konnikova, Maria. “ Revisiting Robbers Cave: The Easy Spontaneity of Intergroup Conflict. ” Scientific American , 5 Sept. 2012.
Perry, Gina. “The View from the Boys.” The Psychologist , vol. 27, Nov. 2014, pp. 834-837. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04582-7
Platow, Michael J. and John A. Hunter. “Intergroup Relations and Conflict: Revisiting Sherif’s Boys’ Camp Studies.” Social Psychology: Revisiting the Classic Studies . Edited by Joanne R. Smith and S. Alexander Haslam, Sage Publications, 2012. https://books.google.com/books/about/Social_Psychology.html?id=WCsbkXy6vZoC
Shariatmadari, David. “A Real-Life Lord of the Flies: The Troubling Legacy of the Robbers Cave Experiment.” The Guardian , 16 Apr. 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/apr/16/a-real-life-lord-of-the-flies-the-troubling-legacy-of-the-robbers-cave-experiment
Sherif, Muzafer. “Experiments in Group Conflict.” Scientific American vol. 195, 1956, pp. 54-58. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24941808
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The Robbers Cave Experiment: Realistic Conflict Theory

Categories Social Psychology

Psychologist Muzafer Sherif suggested that conflict between groups was the result of competition for limited resources. To put this theory to the test, he conducted a series of experiments that are today referred to as the Robbers Cave Experiment.

In this article, learn more about what happened in the Robbers Cave Experiment and the conclusions that Sherif made about what these findings meant with regard to intergroup conflicts. Also, explore some of the criticisms of the study and the impact the research had on the field of social psychology .

Table of Contents

An Overview of the Robbers Cave Experiment

During the summer of 1954, 22 boys between the ages of 11 and 12 arrived at a 200-acre camp at the Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma for what they believed was just a normal summer camp. What they didn’t know is that they were really about to take part in what would become one of the best-known psychological experiments , known today as the Robbers Cave Experiment.

Group Formation and Bonding Phase of the Experiment

The boys, all from similar backgrounds, were randomly assigned to one of two different groups. During the first week of the experiment, the two groups were kept separate and neither had any inkling that the other group even existed.

The boys in each group spent this time bonding with one another by participating in activities like hiking and swimming. As the researchers predicted, each group established its own norms, hierarchy, and practices. They also selected names for their groups (the Rattlers and the Eagles) and had their names emblazoned on their shirts and camp flags.

What Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues were interested in was looking at how intergroup conflicts were influenced by factors such as competition, prejudice, and stereotypes.

The Competition Phase of the Robbers Cave Experiment

In phase two of the experiment, the two groups were made aware of each other’s existence and placed in direct competition with one another in a series of activities that included such things as swimming, baseball, and tug-of-war. The groups engaged in competitive activities in which both group prizes (a trophy) and individual prizes (a pocket knife and a medal) were awarded to the winning team.

As soon as each group learned of the other’s existence, conflicts arose. It began with various forms of verbal abuse such as name-calling and taunting. Once the two groups were placed in real competition with each other, the conflicts became even more pronounced.

As the competitions wore on, the hostilities became much greater. The teams refused to eat in the same room and they began making up derogatory songs about the competing team. One team burned the opposing team’s flag, while both teams raided and vandalized each other’s cabins. At one point, the conflict became so great that the researchers had to separate the groups and give them a two-day period to calm down.

At this point, the researchers asked the boys to describe the features of each group. What they found was that while they tended to describe their own group in very favorable terms, they held unfavorable opinions of the opposing group.

The Integration Phase of the Robbers Cave Experiment

During the third and final phase of the Robbers Cave Experiment, the boys were brought together in an attempt to reduce or eliminate the previous friction generated by the competitions. The boys watched films, lit fireworks, and participated in contests, but the researchers found that none of these activities had any impact on the amount of tension between the members of each group.

In their next attempt to reconcile the groups, the experimenters took all the boys to a new location and engaged them in a series of problem-solving activities. For example, the boys were informed that the drinking water had been sabotaged and that they would need to work together to fix the water faucet.

After cooperating to solve a number of similar problems, it was clear that peace had finally formed between the groups. By the end of the study, the two groups even chose to ride home together on the same bus. When they stopped for refreshments, the group that won prize money in the earlier competitions offered to use that money to pay for milkshakes for the boys from both groups.

Sherif’s Conclusions

Sherif noted that the researchers had made painstaking efforts to ensure that the boys were from similar ethnic, religious, family, and socio-economic backgrounds. None had behavioral problems or past issues with violence.

Since the boys were of similar, stable backgrounds, the results suggest that intergroup conflicts are not the result of mere group differences. Instead, Sherif suggested, each group establishes its own norms, rules, and patterns of behavior.

It is these self-created structures and hierarchies that lead to competition and conflict between groups.

The implications of Sherif’s study go beyond what creates conflict in groups, however. It also offers hope that these intergroup conflicts can be reconciled. Just as the boys in the Eagles and Rattlers learned to work together and eventually achieved amity, the results imply that perhaps such peace could also be reached between opposing groups and warring nations.

Criticisms of the Robbers Cave Experiment

As a field experiment, the Robbers Cave study attempted to create the sort of intergroup conflict that impacts people from all walks of life the world over. While the study was a success and had a good outcome, critics argue that the study suffers from a number of possible problems.

Artificially-created situation : First, while Sherif and his colleagues attempted to create as realistic a situation as possible, the reality was that both the groups and the competition between the groups were artificial. The situation simply could not replicate the deeply rooted beliefs and other influences that can impact real-world conflicts, such as ideology-based wars or long-held sports rivalries.
Ethical concerns : The study has also been criticized on ethical grounds since the boys did not know they were participating in a psychological study and did not give consent. The attempts to generate conflict and aggression also exposed the children to both psychological and physical harm.

Perhaps one of the greatest criticisms of the Robbers Cave Experiment is that it simply doesn’t tell the whole story. What the study does not mention is that Sherif and his colleagues had actually performed two previous versions of the experiment that were far less successful.

In the first version of the study, the two groups ended up ganging up on a shared enemy, while in the second study, they ended up turning on the experimenters themselves.

While the Robbers Cave experiment is not without criticism, it did have an important influence on our understanding of intergroup conflict. The results supported Sherif’s Realistic Conflict Theory, which suggested that intergroup conflicts arise from competition for resources and opposing goals. The study also reveals how such conflicts contribute to things like prejudice and stereotyping.

The study also hints that one of the best ways to overcome such conflicts is to focus on getting people to work together toward a shared goal. Through this type of socialization, out-group conflicts, prejudice, and discrimination can be effectively reduced.

Cherry F. The ‘Stubborn Particulars’ of Social Psychology: Essays on the Research Process . Florence, KY: Taylor & Francess/Routledge; 1995.

Dean J. War, peace and the role of power in Sherif’s Robbers Cave experiment . Psyblog. Published 2007.

Sherif M, Harvey OJ, White BJ, Hood WR, Sherif CW. Intergroup conflict and cooperation: The Robbers Cave experiment (Vol. 10). Norman, OK: Universi ty Book Exchange; 1961.

Robbers Cave Experiment

Life imitates art, and art imitates life. Many say, for example, that the Robbers Cave Experiment and Lord of the Flies are an example of art imitating life.

Did you read Lord of the Flies in middle school or high school? Even if you skimmed over the book, you might remember what it’s about. A group of boys finds themselves stranded on a desert island without adult supervision. As they try to establish a society, they turn on each other in desperation, and things get brutal.

The book has become a staple of Young Adult fiction and is known for being a reflection of society. It warns that anyone has the potential to get violent if they are desperate enough for scarce resources.

Lord of the Flies came out in 1954. The year before, the Rockefeller Foundation gave psychologist Muzafer Sherif $38,000 to conduct a fascinating research experiment. Tired of working with lab rats, Sherif set out to do something unusual - an experiment that one could say mirrored Lord of the Flies. He ended up putting together the Robbers Cave Experiment.

What Is the Robbers Cave Experiment?

The Robbers Cave experiment, once known for its fascinating insight into group conflict theory, is now more infamous than famous. Regardless of its reputation, it remains one of the most well-known social psychology experiments of the 20th century. It attempted to reveal fascinating insights into group conflict and how easily people turn against each other.

Who is Muzafer Sherif?

Muzafer Sherif is the man behind the Robber’s Cave Experiment. Born in Turkey, he witnesses a lot of violence due to the separation of ethnic groups. The violence encouraged him to become a psychologist and attend Harvard University. When he originally published the Robbers Cave Experiment, he earned praise for his work. In recent years, however, criticisms of the Robbers Cave experiment have overshadowed his accomplishments.

How the Robbers Cave Experiment Was Conducted

Sherif’s theory.

Sherif wanted to show how easily groups could turn on each other when they were fighting for limited resources. But he also wanted to show how easily those groups could set aside their differences and come together to defeat a common enemy. Observing these group dynamics couldn’t be done in a lab with rats or dogs. So he took his experiments to a summer camp.

The 22 boys at Robber’s Cave State Park did not know that their summer camp experience would be part of a larger social experiment. They didn’t even know how many people would be at the camp until the second day. On the first day, researchers posing as counselors established two groups of campers: The Eagles and the Rattlers. After the boys bonded within their groups, they were introduced to the others.

Setting Up the Robbers Cave Experiment

The researchers set up a series of competitions over 4-6 days, like baseball games and tug-of-war. Winners received prizes - and the losers would receive nothing. Eventually, they began to set up additional conflicts. For example, one group got access to food while the others were told to wait.

The boys eventually started to develop an “us vs. them” mentality. At first, they only exchanged threats and engaged in verbal conflict. Quickly, however, things became more physical. One group burned the other group’s flag, and one group raided the other group’s cabin and stole items from the boys in that group. Things got violent. In surveys taken during this period, the boys shared negative thoughts and stereotypes against the boys in the other group. This proved the first part of Sherif’s theory.

But he wasn’t done.

Final Results of Robbers Cave Experiment

The Robber’s Cave Experiment then went into a final “friction reduction” phase. All 22 boys were given tasks that would benefit the group as a whole. At one point, the researchers set up a challenge in which a truck delivering food was stuck and couldn’t deliver meals. The boys worked together to get the truck unstuck so they could all eat. In another challenge, the boys formed an assembly line to remove rocks that blocked access to the camp’s water tower. Even though the boys had originally felt hostile toward the boys in the opposing group, they were all able to work together to reach a goal that would benefit the whole group.

One thing to note here is that the boys still did not know they were a part of an experiment. Sherif never revealed this information to them. As you'll read later in this article, they didn't find out about their participation in the experiment until 50+ years later. That's a long time to not knowing that you impacted psychology forever!

Realistic Conflict Theory

This experiment would go on to be key evidence in the Realistic Conflict Theory (RCT.) Donald Campbell coined this term a few years after Sherif’s experiment. At the time, psychologists had talked about group conflict using sex, food, and other basic needs as motivations. Campbell broadened the theory to include larger goals and a wider categorization of resources.

Thus, realistic conflict theory is based on the assumption that group conflict will become tense whenever these groups must compete for limited resources. These resources could be food, but may also be things like respect, power, or recognition. This tension may lead to stereotyping, violence, and other extreme forms of behavior.

Criticisms of the Robbers Cave Experiment

The Robbers Cave Experiment has continued to be one of the most well-known experiments in the world of social psychology. But not all psychologists sing Sherif’s praises. In fact, the Robbers Cave Experiment has become one of the most well-known experiments due to its questionable ethics.

The purpose of an experiment is to test out a hypothesis. If you cannot support your hypothesis with your experiment, the problem is with the hypothesis - not the experiment. When a psychologist approaches an experiment as a way to prove their hypothesis, things can get tricky. Some critics say that’s what Sherif did with the Robbers Cave Experiment.

Middle Grove Experiment

Before the Robbers Cave Experiment, Sherif conducted a similar experiment at a camp called Middle Grove. But the results didn’t work out like he thought they would. The boys never turned on each other - the bond that they had made at camp before the experiment began was too strong. The “counselors” and Sherif set up pranks to pit the boys against each other, but the boys ended up turning on the counselors instead. They eventually figured out they were being manipulated.

These results were thrown out and only came to light in recent years. With these new findings, psychologists began to refrain from using Robbers Cave as an example in textbooks and lectures.

Eventually, with tweaks to the experiment (rather than the hypothesis,) Sherif came up with a scenario that would support his theory. With results that supported his hypothesis, Sherif felt more comfortable publishing his results. The results attempted to reveal the deeper parts of humanity, but the process surrounding Robbers Cave really just revealed a lot about Sherif.

Robbers Cave Experiment vs. Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies didn't exactly have the same resolution as the Robbers Cave experiment. Although the book and experiment are often compared, there are significant differences in how the boys interacted and how their "stories" ended.

(If you haven't read Lord of the Flies, skip to the next section. There are spoilers ahead!)

In Lord of the Flies, (which, keep in mind, is a fictional story,) a group of boys are stranded on an island after their plane is shot down. They are immediately in distress. They also aren't split up into two groups, although ingroups and outgroups begin to form based on age later in the book. At first, the process of finding food and building a fire is fairly democratic. Rifts really form after individuals or pairs make mistakes. The violence also escalates far beyond what would have been allowed in the Robbers Cave experiment. One boy, Piggy, is killed.

The resolution in the Robbers Cave experiment is the result of a problem that all the boys work to solve together. These tasks start from the very beginning of Lord of the Flies. (The book ends with all the boys sobbing after they have been rescued.)

Remember that Lord of the Flies was fiction and came from the mind of William Golding. Although, many might argue that the results of the Robbers Cave Experiment were also manipulated...

Legacy of the Robbers Cave Experiment and Muzafer Sherif

Lord of the Flies will likely be on reading lists for decades to come. Will Sherif's experiment also stand the test of time? It might not. A 2018 book by Gina Perry suggests that the experiment was not as groundbreaking or revealing as it might seem.

Gina Perry is a psychologist and the author of two books that dive into psychology's most famous experiments. (In 2013, Perry published "Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments." The book looks at Stanley Milgram 's personal life and how it may have affected the results of his experiment.) Her take on Sherif's work is particularly fascinating. She shows how Sherif actively worked to manipulate the results of the Robbers Cave Experiment to prove his theory.

Two interesting points stand out from her book, although the entire story is worth a read.

The participants didn't know that they were a part of the study until Perry contacted them herself.
Sherif was so proud of his experiment that he went back to Robbers Cave to celebrate his 80th birthday.

If you are interested in reading more about the legacy of the Robbers Cave experiment, buy Gina Perry's book "The Lost Boys: Inside Muzafer Sherif's Robbers Cave Experiment" or check it out of your local library. Learning the context behind the experiment puts the results into a different perspective.

Other Examples of Realistic Conflict Theory

While RCT’s most well-known experiment is no longer known for being ethically sound, there is still evidence to support this theory. A lot of this evidence comes from data related to racial tensions and immigration policy.

In 1983, a paper was published on the opposition to school busing and integration. Data taken around that time supported the idea that opposition to busing wasn’t just fueled by racism itself. Group conflict motives also played a role. The threat of another “group” taking scarce resources (access to education) scared whites during that time period.

We hear similar arguments in the present day. Have you ever heard one of your relatives or talk show commentators argue that “immigrants are taking our jobs?” Never mind the validity behind the threat - the perceived threat is enough to cause hostility and tension.

More data and experiments are looking at realistic conflict theory. Psychologists may change their perspectives on intergroup conflict and other related topics. But for now, the Robbers Cave Experiment offers an important reminder that experiments cannot be conducted simply to prove a hypothesis.

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Robbers Cave Experiment

Robbers cave experiment definition.

The Robbers Cave experiment demonstrated that an attempt to simply bring hostile groups together is not enough to reduce intergroup prejudice. Rather, this experiment confirmed that groups must cooperate and have common goals to truly build peace. Thus, although contact is vital to reducing tensions between groups, interdependence is essential for establishing lasting intergroup harmony. This experiment is a classic in social psychology and is important because it has implications for reducing conflict between real social groups. In addition, this study has implications for a number of prominent social psychological theories, including realistic conflict theory and social identity theory.

Robbers Cave Experiment Background

The study took place in three separate stages that were approximately 1 week apart: (1) group formation, (2) intergroup competition, and (3) intergroup cooperation. The purpose of the first stage was to encourage the development of unique ingroup identities among the groups. This occurred as a result of the boys engaging in shared activities (e.g., swimming, hiking) with their own groups, which indeed led to the spontaneous emergence of norms, leaders, and identities. In fact, the groups even chose distinct names for themselves, with one referring to itself as the Rattlers and the other as the Eagles.

In the second stage, the groups were introduced and placed in direct competition with one another. Thus, the boys competed in a series of contests involving activities such as baseball and tug-of-war. The group that won overall was to be awarded a trophy and other prizes, and the losing group was to receive nothing. The result was a vicious rivalry between the groups, with both verbal and physical attacks being commonplace. For instance, the boys engaged in name-calling and taunting, as well as more physical acts of aggression such as stealing the winning group’s prizes and burning each other’s team flags. Clearly, the researchers’ goal of creating intergroup conflict was easily achieved. However, resolving this conflict turned out to be a more difficult task.

In the final stage of the experiment, researchers arranged specific situations designed to reduce the severe hostility between groups. First, the groups were provided with noncompetitive opportunities for increased contact, such as watching movies and sharing meals together. However, these getting-to-know-you opportunities did little to defuse intergroup hostility. In fact, many of these situations resulted in an exchange of verbal insults and, occasionally, food fights.

As an alternative strategy, the groups were placed in situations that required them to cooperate with one another (i.e., the situations involved superordinate goals). For instance, one situation involved a broken-down truck carrying supplies to the camp. Another involved a problem with the camp’s water supply. In both cases, the groups needed to work together because the resources at stake were important to everyone involved. This cooperation resulted in more harmonious relations between groups, as friendships began to develop across group lines. As a telling sign of their newfound harmony, both groups expressed a desire to return home on the same bus.

Robbers Cave Experiment Implications and Importance

The Robbers Cave experiment has had an enormous impact on the field of social psychology. First, this study has implications for the contact hypothesis of prejudice reduction, which, in its simplest form, posits that contact between members of different groups improves how well groups get along. This experiment illustrates how contact alone is not enough to restore intergroup harmony. Even after the competition between the boys ended, the hostility did not disappear during future contact. Competition seemingly became incorporated into the groups’ identities. The hostility did not finally calm down until the context changed and cooperation between groups was required. Thus, beyond mere contact, groups also need to be interdependent and have common goals.

Second, this study validated the claims of realistic conflict theory, which specifies that prejudice and discrimination result when groups are placed in competition for valuable resources. The boys in this experiment clearly demonstrated that competition breeds intergroup hostility. More importantly, however, this study highlights the significance of the social context in the development of prejudice and discrimination. The boys selected to participate in this study were well-adjusted and came from stable, middle-class families. Thus, it is unlikely that individual characteristics such as socioeconomic status and family life were responsible for the observed effects because these factors were held constant. Rather, the context of intergroup relations (i.e., competition) led to the observed conflict and hostility. This suggests that prejudice is largely a product of social situations and that individual pathology is not necessary to produce outgroup hatred. Therefore, the results of this experiment speak to a number of social psychological theories that emphasize the importance of the social context in understanding group prejudice, such as social identity theory and self-categorization theory.

References:

LeVine, R. A., & Campbell, D. T. (1972). Ethnocentrism: Theories of conflict, ethnic attitudes and group behavior. New York: Wiley.
Sherif, M., Harvey, O. J., White, B. J., Hood, W. R., & Sherif, C. W. (1988). The Robbers Cave experiment. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

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Robbers Cave Experiment

Sherif’s Robbers Cave Experiment

Sherif's classic social psychology experiment named Robbers Cave Experiment dealt with in-group relations, out-group relations and intergroup relations.

This article is a part of the guide:

Social Psychology Experiments
Milgram Experiment
Bobo Doll Experiment
Stanford Prison Experiment
Asch Experiment

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1 Social Psychology Experiments
2.1 Asch Figure
3 Bobo Doll Experiment
4 Good Samaritan Experiment
5 Stanford Prison Experiment
6.1 Milgram Experiment Ethics
7 Bystander Apathy
8 Sherif’s Robbers Cave
9 Social Judgment Experiment
10 Halo Effect
11 Thought-Rebound
12 Ross’ False Consensus Effect
13 Interpersonal Bargaining
14 Understanding and Belief
15 Hawthorne Effect
16 Self-Deception
17 Confirmation Bias
18 Overjustification Effect
19 Choice Blindness
20.1 Cognitive Dissonance
21.1 Social Group Prejudice
21.2 Intergroup Discrimination
21.3 Selective Group Perception

The experiment focused heavily on the concept of a 'group' and what a perception of belonging to a group can actually do to the relationships of members within it and their relationships with people outside their group.

The same experiment also tried to observe conflicts or 'friction' between two groups and the process of cooperation or 'integration' of two previously conflicting groups.

Background of the Experiment

Both in the fields of Sociology and Psychology, researchers have been fascinated with the concept of 'group.' This particular concept can be defined as one of the basic social units a person can have. It can consist of a number of individuals who has a definite status or role relationship with other members of the group. Another key feature of a group is that members have a set of norms or values that regulate the behaviour and attitudes of the members. This can be the reason why we usually hear the statement: "Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are."

Along with this concept of belonging to a group are several concepts that are vital to the understanding of this experiment. All the common attitudes, aspirations, hopes and goals that all the members of a group share are social units that can be referred to as in-groups while all the social units that is not part of the group and all the social units that he cannot relate to is called out-groups. Correspondingly, the relation between two or more in-groups along with its members can be called intergroup relations.

Three Phases of the Experiment

In-group Formation - this phase involves the experimental creation of in-groups through activities that will promote group identification.
Friction Phase - this phase involves bringing two experimentally formed groups into conflict with each other or forming intergroup tension.
Integration Phase - this phase involves bringing the two previously conflicting groups into cooperation through the attainment of superordinate goals.

Phase 1 (In-Group Formation)

The subjects of the experiment were twenty-two eleven year-old boys of middle-class socioeconomic standing, who have not experienced any unusual degree of frustration in their homes, who are not school or social failures and who have similar educational level. These boys were taken into a summer camp in Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma. Before the start of the experiment, the boys were randomly divided into two groups ending up with eleven boys each.

The two groups were separately transported and housed in cabins within the same park. Ultimately, the groups must not be aware of the existence of the other group during the first phase of the experiment. Otherwise, any functional contact between the two groups would certainly have unwanted consequences both for the in-group formation and for the later phases of the experiment. It is these two groups that formed the basis of group interaction that is the focus of the Robbers Cave Experiment .

During the first week of the experiment, the groups did not know the existence of the other group. They basically spend time bonding with each other while hiking in the park or swimming. Each group was tasked to coin a group name which was stencilled on their flags and on their shirts. A group name is a good step to allow the members of each group to identify with their respective groups. It grants the members belongingness and group spirit. One of the groups chose Eagles as their group name while the other group chose Rattlers. The chief aim of the first phase is to produce in-groups through the interaction of the members within the two separate groups.

Phase 2 (Friction Phase)

During this phase, the two groups were allowed to find out about the existence of the other group. The chief aim of this phase is the production of conflict between the two groups which can be accomplished by a series of competitive activities in the form of a tournament of events which will yield cumulative scores with a reward for the members of the winning group.

This step of the experimenters greatly increased the antagonism between the two groups. This was significantly evident during the tally of the scores where the Rattlers won the overall trophy. The Rattlers planted their flag in the play field as a reminder of their success. Later on, name calling started and the singing of offending songs were also observed.

Furthermore, after these incidences, the groups refused to eat in the same dining together. The experimenters were so successful at producing friction that they concluded that it was no longer safe to conduct friction-producing activities and phase two was suddenly cut short and phase three commenced.

Phase 3 (Integration Phase)

This stage constitutes the most crucial and significant aspect of the study. In this phase, the experimenters will deliberately attempt to bring about cooperation between the two groups following a stage of friction or conflict. This phase aims to study the process of reducing group tensions.

The first activity for this phase was a problem wherein both the groups must cooperate to solve because the resources and efforts of a single group are inadequate to attain the solution to the problem. Both of the groups were taken to a new location and were told that they are having drinking water shortage. The two groups had to repair the damage done by vandals to their drinking water supply. During the successful repair of their water problems, cooperation was observed between the members of the two groups. This activity was done by the experimenters to create a state of real and tangible interdependence between the members of the two groups.

The second activity was the group needed to interact with each other and they had to pay and decide for a movie that they would like to watch. The groups successfully agreed upon a movie all of them should watch and during the dinner after this activity, all the boys were eating together once again.

Observations

Definite group structures and dynamics consisting of individual status and roles will be formed when a number of individuals without previously established interpersonal relations interact with one another under similar context and events.
During the Friction Phase, uneasy conflicts produce unfavourable stereotypes in relation to the out-group and its members placing the out-group at a certain social distance.
In an event that a number of conflicting groups are brought together with a common superordinate goal and the attainment of which cannot be achieved by the efforts of one group alone, the groups will tend to cooperate towards the achievement of the superordinate goal.
Psychology 101
Flags and Countries
Capitals and Countries

Explorable.com (Jun 25, 2010). Sherif’s Robbers Cave Experiment. Retrieved Aug 23, 2024 from Explorable.com: https://explorable.com/robbers-cave-experiment

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Robbers Cave experiment

Quick reference.

A field experiment on conflict and cooperation carried out by the US-based Turkish psychologist Muzafer Sherif (1906–88) and several colleagues in the summer of 1954 and published in books entitled The Robbers Cave Experiment: Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation (1961) and In Common Predicament: Social Psychology of Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation (1966). Two groups of white, middle-class eleven-year-old boys, arbitrarily named Rattlers and Eagles by the experimenters and each initially unaware of the other group's existence, spent the first week of a three-week summer holiday hiking, swimming, boating, and camping. After they had established separate group identities, they were brought together to compete at football, treasure hunts, tug-of-war, and other events, the winners receiving trophies and medals. Almost immediately, Rattlers and Eagles became hostile and antagonistic towards each other: flags were burned, cabins ransacked, and a food fight escalated into a near-riot in the mess hall. The experimenters restored peace by contriving situations in which members of the two groups had to cooperate to achieve superordinate goals. For example, the camp truck was made to break down at a spot where members of both groups were needed to pull it up a steep hill. At the end of the third week, the two groups were so friendly that they chose to travel home on the same bus. See also realistic group conflict theory, social identity theory. Compare jigsaw classroom. [Named after Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma, where the experiment took place]

From: Robbers Cave experiment in A Dictionary of Psychology »

Subjects: Science and technology — Psychology

The Robbers Cave Experiment: The Psychological Study Of Unsupervised Boys That Inspired Lord Of The Flies

In an effort to test one of his theories on social behavior, psychologist muzafer sherif released 22 twelve-year-old boys into a sparsely supervised wilderness camp — and then covertly provoked them to fight each other..

The British Psychological Society /University of Akron Some of 22 12-year-old boys unknowingly en route to participate in Sherif’s Robbers Cave experiment.

In the summer of 1954, world-renowned social psychologist Muzafer Sherif toted 22 boys to the foothills of the San Bois Mountains of southeastern Oklahoma. There, in Robbers Cave State Park, he intended to conduct an unprecedented social experiment that involved pitting sparsely supervised 12-year-old boys against each other in the Oklahoma wilderness.

This was the Robbers Cave experiment, and its startling outcome would inspire the harrowing book Lord of the Flies just a year later. Nearly six decades since, experts dub the experiment unethical as it appears to have left lasting mental damage on its subjects.

The First Experiment: Camp Middle Grove

Muzafer Sherif was born in the Ottoman Empire and won a slot to study psychology at Harvard. He quickly realized that lab research on rats was too confining and he wanted a more complex subject: humans.

Fascination with social psychology had, with reason, reached a peak following WWII, and so Sherif was able to secure a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

His initial experiment required that 11-year-old boys be sent under the guise of a summer camp to Middle Grove park in upstate New York. There Sherif would split the boys into teams, pit them against each other for prizes, and then try to reunite them using a series of frustrating and life-threatening events — like a forest fire. Neither the parents nor the boys, obviously, knew this was a study.

The Robbers Cave experiment, then, was the second of Sherif’s, as his study at Middle Grove in the summer of 1953 had in his mind not accomplished the outcome he had hoped for. He was looking for confirmation of his “ Realistic Conflict Theory “, which stated that groups would compete for limited resources even against their friends and allies, but come together in the face of a common disaster regardless of those alliances.

The boys at Middle Grove had not cooperated with this theory. They stayed friends despite all hardships, even when Sherif had his staffers steal their clothes, raze their tents, and smash their toys all the while framing other campers.

The experiment ended in a drunken brawl between one of the leading social psychologists in the world, Muzafer Sherif, and his research assistants as his experiment had not cooperated with him.

Sherif resolved to try again with the Robbers Cave experiment.

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The Robbers Cave Experimental Camp

The Campers On A Cliff In Robbers Cave Park

Scientific American Blog A group of boys explore a cliff which overlooks their campsite.

Sherif still had money from the grant for the first study but after his failure, felt that his reputation was at risk. This time he would keep the boys separated from the beginning so that they couldn’t form the pesky friendships which had thwarted the study at Middle Grove. The groups were the Rattlers and the Eagles.

The two groups were unaware of each other for the first two days. They bonded with their own group through standard camp activities like hiking and swimming.

Once the groups seemed to be solidly formed, Sherif and his team instituted the ‘competition phase’ of the Robbers Cave experiment. The groups were introduced to each other and a series of rivalrous activities were scheduled. There would be a tug-of-war, baseball and so forth. Prizes would also be awarded, trophies at stake, and there would be no consolation prizes for the losers. The Rattlers declared they would be the winners and monopolized the baseball field in order to practice.

They put their flag up on the field and told the Eagles they had better not touch it.

The Conflict

Competition is apparent on this haughty flag.

The staffers began to interfere more aggressively in the Robbers Cave experiment. They deliberately caused conflict and once arranged for one group to be late for lunch so that the other group would eat all the food.

At first, the conflict between the boys was verbal with just taunts and name-calling. But under the careful guidance of Sherif and his staff, it soon became physical. The Eagles were supplied with matches and they burned their rival’s flag. The Rattlers retaliated, invaded the Eagles’ cabin, and wrecked it and stole their belongings.

The conflict escalated to violence so that the groups had to be separated for two days.

Now that the kids hated each other, Sherif decided it was time to vindicate his theory and bring them back together. So he shut off the drinking water.

The Rattlers and Eagles set off to find the water tank which was on a mountain. The only water they had was what was in their canteens. When they arrived at the tank, hot and thirsty, the groups had already begun to merge.

Resolution and Legacy Of The Robbers Cave Experiment

The campers found the valve to the tank but it was covered with rocks, so they joined together and removed the rocks as quickly as possible. This pleased Sherif immensely as it was in direct agreement with his theory: the groups would fight over limited resources but band together when faced with a common threat.

Nevermind that the experiment was ethically and procedurally dubious, as Sherif had gotten the results that he wanted and his theory, along with the study itself, garnered great publicity. But even professionals who used the study in their textbooks doubted its value.

Six decades of development in the field have led modern psychologists to criticize the study. Sherif conducted his experiment under the belief that it was meant to showcase his theory, not either prove or disprove it. In this way, he could very easily and in many ways did, finagle the outcome he desired.

Further, the boys were all middle-class and white, and all shared a Protestant, two-parent background. The study in this way was not reflective of real-life and was considered limited. There was also the ethical issue surrounding the participants’ deception: neither the children nor their parents knew what they had consented to, and the boys were in many cases left unattended or in danger of harm.

Regardless of these qualms, the Robbers Cave experiment has left a legacy — particularly on the participants.

Now-grown camper Doug Griset recalls ironically: “I’m not traumatized by the experiment, but I don’t like lakes, camps, cabins or tents.”

If you enjoyed this article about the Robbers Cave experiment, then read about how the Stanford Prison Experiment ended in disaster or cringe at this list of the most evil scientific experiments ever performed.

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During the 1950s, the landmark Robbers Cave experiment demonstrated that when groups must compete with one another, intergroup conflict, hostility, and even violence may result. At the Oklahoman summer camp, two troops of boys—termed the Rattlers and the Eagles—took part in a week-long tournament. During this time, their negativity culminated in derogatory name-calling, fistfights, and even vandalism and destruction of property. However, this work also revealed that such tension could be lessened through the implementation of superordinate goals , or objectives that, in order to be reached, require groups to work together in a positive manner. For example, during the Robbers Cave study, along with teaming up to help start a truck, both the Rattlers and Eagles pooled their money to view a popular movie at the time, Treasure Island (Sherif, Harvey, White, et al ., 1988; see also Sherif, 1956). Although the Robbers Cave study only focused on two small groups, its insight into the formation and remediation of intergroup conflict is still applicable today.

Mechanisms of Action of Superordinate Goals

While the common goals introduced in the Robbers Cave experiment helped to unite the Rattlers and Eagles, the question arose as to how this was possible. More recent research has suggested that this outcome may result from changes in how groups categorize one another (Gaertner, Dovido, Banker, et al. , 2000). On the one hand, when two groups come together during a subordinate goal, this behavior results in one-on-one interactions between members. Instead of an “us” and “them” mentality, individuals get to learn about one another—like each other’s favorite games, friends, sports, and home life. This process decategorizes a member of a different group; they are seen as a distinct person, rather than part of a “them” enemy faction.

In addition, when groups unite under a common goal, people recategorize one another as having the same identity (Gaertner, Dovido, Banker, et al. , 2000; see also Kelly & Collett, 2008). For example, when the Rattlers and Eagles joined together to help start a truck needed to procure provisions, they may not have seen themselves as “us” and “them” cliques, but rather as members of the same camp working together to solve a problem affecting everyone. This recategorization was also observed at the end of the study when campers rode home together on a single bus singing the song “Oklahoma.” Here, everyone was united and shared a collective identity—both as members of the same camp, and (on a larger scale) as Oklahomans, with pride in their home state. Thus, through fostering decategorization and recategorization of group members, subordinate goals can help lessen conflict.

Applications of Lessons from Robbers Cave

Intergroup conflict occurs in different walks of life: schools (Kelly & Collett, 2008), workplaces (Mannix & Nagler, 2017), healthcare systems (Creasy & Kinard, 2013), and even between nations in the form of outright warfare (Spini, Elcheroth & Fasel, 2008). Some researchers are looking at how lessons learned during the Robbers Cave experiment—such as using superordinate goals to reduce hostility—may be employed to improve relationships between individuals in these different fields.

For example, some work has focused on how healthcare mergers—like when two hospitals combine into one—are affected by intergroup conflict (Creasy & Kinard, 2013). This process can be complicated if employees of the respective facilities adopt an “us vs. them” mentality, which can breed suspicion and dislike, resulting in parties failing to exchange patient or operational information. This reaction may be due, in part, to workers feeling that they compete for a limited number of jobs in the newly-merged entity. To combat this thinking, solutions such as reassuring employees that their jobs are secure and emphasizing superordinate goals—like providing stellar, accessible care for all patients—may help to reduce conflict.

Other work has focused on means to lessen conflict in desegregated schools, where negative interactions may occur between children of different racial or ethnic groups (Kelly & Collett, 2008). Here, superordinate goals—like those related to extracurricular activities—are again emphasized as a way to improve student relations. For example, camaraderie and respect can be fostered amongst the members of a football team who experience the superordinate goal of winning games. Possibly, these positive interactions can also be reinforced by highlighting each individual’s unique contribution to the team, and the fact that all players share a unique identity—they are all members of (and represent) the same school. Thus, by applying principles of the Robbers Cave experiment, intergroup hostilities experienced in today’s society can be lessened, and friendships may be fostered between individuals of different backgrounds.

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Everyday Psych

The Robbers Cave Experiment

Peace is not an absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means. — Ronald Reagan

Lately, it’s felt like groups are more and more in conflict with each other. Republicans versus Democrats. Nation One versus Nation Two. Ninjas versus Pirates. (Obviously Team Ninja over here.) And in understanding these tensions–and solutions to them–there is an illustrative story I will share.

The story of one of social psychology’s most infamous experiments.

STAGE ONE: TWENTY-TWO YOUNG BOYS

In the summer of 1954, an increasingly well-known social psychologist, Muzafer Sherif, randomly selected twenty-two well-adjusted boys about 12 years old and from similar, middle-class backgrounds. They were all in the same year at school but had never interacted with one another before. The plan, then, was to have them participate in a very unique summer camp…

Before arriving at the 200-acre camp in Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma, the boys were randomly divided into two groups and brought to the camp in separate buses and housed in cabins on opposing ends.

Once these identities began to form, the researchers let slip that there was another group of boys on the same campgrounds. And almost immediately, an interesting change overtook the groups. For example, without any prompting, each group began insistently asking the researchers to let them engage in competitions with the other group. Moreover, each group began to become very protective of their facilities, even complaining that the other group might abuse them.

Then, with tensions on the rise, the researchers introduced some actual friction…

STAGE TWO: TROUBLE BREWS

Without actually initiating any competitions, the counselors expressed that they would have some competitive activities between the groups. And importantly, the winning side would receive medals, trophies, and prizes.

Upon learning this, a fire began to burn in those little boy hearts.

And when the two groups were actually brought together for the first time in the cafeteria, “there was considerable name-calling, razzing back and forth, and singing derogatory songs by each group in turn” (Sherif, 1961). Soon, there was talk within each groups of burning the opposing group’s flag. And after The Eagles defeated The Rattlers in a series of competitions (through the discreet aid of the researchers), The Rattlers organized a raid on The Eagles, stealing any medals and toys they could get their hands on.

In fact, the two groups nearly came to blows were it not for the researchers’ intervention as the previous name-calling of “braggers” and “stinkers” turned to much more offensive remarks. In short, the conflict between groups had become very, very real…

STAGE THREE: PACIFYING TENSIONS

At first, the researchers tried a number of “get-to-know-you” activities, such as sharing a meal, a movie, and even fireworks for the Fourth of July. However, these attempts only provoked the boys further, many of the events ending in more name-calling or even food fights.

At which point, the researchers tested out their primary hypothesis: activating a superordinate (i.e., higher-order) goal can bring conflicting groups together . That is, the researchers crafted problems that required solutions beyond the resources either one group could provide.

For example, the researchers convinced the boys that all the drinking water for the camp had been blocked because of “vandals” in the area. Bringing both groups to the pipe proving to be the root of the issue, the boys had to work together to figure out how to get water for everyone.

And amazingly, as antagonistic as the groups has become, by the end of the camp, they wanted to take the same bus back; they wanted to sit across party lines; and when they stopped at a refreshment stand, The Rattlers—who had been awarded $5 for winning one of the earlier activities—volunteered to use that money to buy malted milks for all the boys.

STAGE NEXT: APPLYING IT TO OUR OWN LIVES

This famous study illustrates (and led to the development of) realistic conflict theory . This theory specifies that when there are limited resources—be that food and drink, jobs, political clout, reputation—conflict will naturally breed between groups.

Importantly, though, these resources don’t even need to actually be limited; they could simply be perceived as limited. For example, even if immigrants aren’t depriving native born workers from job opportunities, the mere perception that they could be can lead to conflict and prejudice against them.

So, when thinking about our own world, one way to reduce these conflicts is to categorize ourselves in more encompassing groups, rather than ones in competition. For example, rather than thinking about us as Democrats versus Republicans, we should think of ourselves all as Americans in pursuit of shared, superordinate goals (e.g., the opportunity for happiness for all).

Thus, the next time you feel some negativity toward another group, try to focus on the bigger picture and don’t be outclassed by some 12-year-old boys 😉

A-28-year-old-boy, jdt

Psych•o•philosophy to Ponder : In addition to trying to activate shared goals and common group identity, another prominent theory for reducing tensions between groups come from Gordon Allport’s famous contact hypothesis . Here, research shows that meaningful interactions between groups leads to reduced group antagonism. For example, if Democrats and Republicans got together to spend meaningful time together (e.g., doing activities they both enjoy, working together on a problem, etc.), it would help reduce some of the prejudice they hold for one another. Importantly, though, not all intergroup contact results in better outcomes. For example, if people are in the same area (e.g., a subway car) but don’t actually have substantial interactions with another, this kind of contact can actually backfire, making people have even more prejudice toward the outgroup member.

Sherif, M. (1961). Intergroup conflict and cooperation: The Robbers Cave experiment (Vol. 10, pp. 150-198). Norman, OK: University Book Exchange.

Reader Interactions

March 6, 2019 at 9:39 pm

Pondering the possible results of this scenario among other groups, I wonder if people can see beyond their differences to Desire to cooperate, even for a common goal.

March 8, 2019 at 7:22 am

Great question! Psychologically speaking, we would suspect that other groups operate off of similar principles to the ones I described above; however, they may be stronger or weaker depending on the cohesiveness of the group. Nonetheless, getting people to share a common goal (or even a common enemy) can be enough to unite even the most conflicting groups.

Introducing, Managing and Resolving Conflict: The Robbers Cave Experiment

Objective of the robbers cave experiment.

The proponent of the Robbers Cave study is Muzafer Sherif, who wanted to prove that intergroup conflict and hostility arises when there is competition for limited resources, causing them to have negative thoughts and behavior towards the other groups.

How the Robbers Cave Experiment was done

The boys were placed assigned into two groups – both of which are not familiar with the presence of the other. They only thought that they were the only groups in the camp. The group of experimenters posed as camp instructors. The study was then divided in three phases:

Results of the Robbers Cave Experiment

The Robbers Cave experiment Muzafer Sherif

The robbers cave experiment muzafer sherif et al (1954).

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Chapter 7: Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination

Back to chapter, robbers cave, previous video 7.3: stereotype content model, next video 7.5: stereotype threat and self-fulfilling prophecies.

In 1954, what began as summer camp amidst Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma emerged as a famous field study on social identity and intergroup relations.

Building upon previous work, Muzafer Sherif and colleagues tested the realistic conflict theory —a notion that individuals who must contend for scarce resources—either perceived or real—begin to exhibit competitive tendencies and negative attitudes as a result.

Before arriving, researchers carefully selected 22 fifth-grade boys of similar sociocultural and personal backgrounds and randomly assigned them to one of two groups.

All subjects were unknown to each other, as well as unaware of the experiment’s purpose and that they would be conspicuously observed and recorded by the researchers who were disguised as “camp staff” members.

During the first in-group formation phase , the 11- to 12-year-olds arrived on separate buses—without knowing that the others existed, since they were housed at isolated sites. They were directed to bond within their group while participating in activities, like hiking and canoeing.

Throughout their first week together, the boys became connected and established group norms, singing songs and playing games, as well as their identities. They’re now the Eagles and Rattlers.

To set-up the next part, the Rattlers were allowed to wander near the ball field, within distance to hear the Eagles playing. At practice the very next day, the Rattlers outwardly declared the field “theirs”.

For the second stage, the intergroup friction phase , the staff officially announced the presence of another group. This revelation elicited heightened awareness of “us” versus “them”, and both teams charged ahead with enthusiastic rivalry.

In a series of events, the groups would compete in a tournament of activities, like baseball and tug-of-war. While most of the outcomes were determined by the victorious team, a few occasions, such as cabin inspections, were judged by the staff to keep the point totals tight and the teams motivated to win.

Over the next week, both sides participated in numerous incidents of name-calling and humiliation—even campers who weren’t as active in the physical participation.

As the days passed, the losers’ frustrations turned more physical: The Eagles burned the Rattler’s flag, and in turn, the members retaliated; sportsmanship was on the decline, as the smell of victory approached; and unfair tactics caught the confident Rattlers off balance.

The mood, now hostile, fostered ransacking of the cabins—beds were overturned and property was stolen, including comic books. And sure enough, the raids became a reciprocal occurrence as the tournament was coming to an end.

Who would prevail hinged on the last event, a treasure hunt. Unbeknownst to the campers, the winning team was determined by the researchers, who manipulated the routes.

In the days following victory and defeat, the researchers devoted time for everyone to cool off and enjoy in-group activities—including civilized swimming time at the beach.

At the end of the second phase, the groups were once again placed within physical proximity to each other, and their behavior was observed. Their responses confirmed tendencies to classify their own in-group favorably—indicating positive group relations—and the out-group unfavorably—highlighting the persistence of the negative intergroup attitudes.

For the final stage, the intergroup integration phase , researchers crafted numerous non-competitive situations where the two would have to work together to achieve common objectives— superordinate goals —in an effort to reconcile the groups’ attitudes and behaviors. For example, the camp truck was stuck and they all had to pull the vehicle to get it to start.

Soon enough, the division of “us” versus “them” disappeared, along with the intergroup hostility. The boys ended their stay with positivity—leaving camp on one bus.

In the end, using cooperation to accomplish shared goals may dissolve perceived enemies into friends and break down social barriers that could fuel conflict.

Mechanisms of Action of Superordinate Goals

Applications of Lessons from Robbers Cave

The hidden story

However, the Robbers Cave experiment, a classic study of prejudice and conflict, has at least one hidden story.

The well-known story emerged in the decades following the experiment as textbook writers adopted a particular retelling.

With repetition people soon accepted this story as reality, forgetting it is just one version of events, one interpretation of a complex series of studies.

As scholars have returned to the Robbers Cave experiment another story has emerged, suggesting a darker conclusion that demonstrates the corrupting influence of power.

First though, the more familiar story…

Conflict in the Robbers Cave experiment

In this experiment twenty-two 11 year-old boys were taken to a summer camp in Robbers Cave State Park, Oklahoma, little knowing they were the subjects of an experiment.

Before the trip the boys were randomly divided into two groups.

It’s these two groups that formed the basis of Sherif’s study of how prejudice and conflict build up between two groups of people ( Sherif et al., 1961 ).

When the boys arrived, they were housed in separate cabins and, for the first week, did not know about the existence of the other group.

They spent this time bonding with each other while swimming and hiking.

Both groups chose a name which they had stencilled on their shirts and flags: one group was the Eagles and the other the Rattlers.

Name calling

The two groups now established, the experiment moved into its second phase.

For the first time the two groups were allowed to find out about each other and soon the signs of intergroup conflict emerged in the form of verbal abuse.

A little name-calling wasn’t enough, though.

The experimenters wanted to increase the conflict substantially.

To do this they pitted the groups against each other in a series of competitions.

This ratcheted up the antagonism between the two groups, especially once all the team scores were added up and the Rattlers won the overall trophy for the competitive activities.

They didn’t let the Eagles forget it.

The Rattlers staked their claim to the ball field by planting their flag in it.

Later on each group started name calling at the other and singing derogatory songs.

Soon the groups were refusing to eat in the same room together.

Making peace

With conflict between the groups successfully instigated, the experiment now moved into its final phase.

Could the experimenters make the two groups kiss and make up?

First of all they tried some activities in which the two groups were brought together, such as watching a film and shooting firecrackers, but neither of these worked.

The experimenters then tried a new approach.

They took the two groups to a new location and gave them a series of problems to try and solve.

In the first problem the boys were told the drinking water supply had been attacked by vandals.

After the two groups successfully worked together to unblock a faucet, the first seeds of peace were sown.

In the second problem the two groups had to club together to pay for the movie they wanted to watch.

Both groups also agreed on which movie they should watch.

By the evening the members of both groups were once again eating together.

The groups ‘accidentally’ came across more problems over the next few days.

The key thing about each of them was that they involved superordinate goals: boys from both groups worked together to achieve something they all had an interest in.

Finally all the boys decided to travel home together in the same bus.

Peace had broken out all over.

Sherif reached an important conclusion from this study, and other similar work carried out in the 1940s and 50s.

He argued that groups naturally develop their own cultures, status structures and boundaries.

Think of each of these groups of boys as like a country in microcosm.

Each country has its own culture, its government, legal system and it draws boundaries to differentiate itself from neighbouring countries.

From these internal structures, the roots of conflict in both the groups of boys and between countries are created.

One of the reasons Sherif’s study is so famous is that it appeared to show how groups could be reconciled, how peace could flourish.

The key was the focus on superordinate goals, those stretching beyond the boundaries of the group itself.

It seemed that this was what brought the Rattlers and the Eagles back together.

Robbers Cave experiment: the other story

What is often left out of the familiar story is that it was not the first of its type, but actually the third in a series carried out by Sherif and colleagues.

The two earlier studies had rather less happy endings.

In the first, the boys ganged up on a common enemy and in the second they ganged up on the experimenters themselves.

How does this alter the way we look at the original Robbers Cave experiment?

Michael Billig argues that when looking at all three studies, Sherif’s work involves not just two groups but three, the experimenters are part of the system as well ( Billig, 1976 ).

In fact, with the experimenters included, it is clear they are actually the most powerful group.

Much of the conflict between the two groups of boys is orchestrated by the experimenters.

The experimenters have a vested interest in creating conflict between the two groups of boys.

It was they who had the most to lose if the experiment went wrong, and the most to gain if it went right.

Power relations

The three experiments, then, one with a ‘happy’ ending, and two less so, can be seen in terms of the possible outcomes when a powerful group tries to manipulate two weaker groups.

Sometimes they can be made to play fair (experiment three), sometimes the groups will unite against a common enemy (experiment one) and sometimes they will turn on the powerful group (experiment two).

For psychologist Frances Cherry it is the second experiment which makes this analysis plausible. When the boys rebel against the experimenters, they showed understanding of how they were being manipulated ( Cherry, 1995 ).

Although the Robbers Cave experiment is, in some sense, the ‘successful’ study, taken together with the other two it is more realistic.

In reality, Cherry argues, it is more often the case that groups hold unequal amounts of power.

Weak groups can rebel

Unequal levels of power between groups fundamentally changes the dynamic between them.

Whether it’s countries, corporations, or just families, if one group has more power, suddenly the way is open for orchestrated competitions and cooperation, not to mention manipulation.

Manipulating other groups, though, is a dangerous game, and weaker groups don’t always play by the rules set for them.

Perhaps this is the more subtle, if less enduring message of the Robbers Cave experiment and its supposedly less successful predecessors.

→ This post is part of a series on the best social psychology experiments :

Halo Effect : Definition And How It Affects Our Perception
Cognitive Dissonance : How and Why We Lie to Ourselves
Stanford Prison Experiment : Zimbardo’s Famous Social Psychology Study
Milgram Experiment : Explaining Obedience to Authority
False Consensus Effect : What It Is And Why It Happens
Social Identity Theory And The Minimal Group Paradigm
Negotiation : 2 Psychological Strategies That Matter Most
Bystander Effect And The Diffusion Of Responsibility
Asch Conformity Experiment : The Power Of Social Pressure

Author: Dr Jeremy Dean

Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD is the founder and author of PsyBlog. He holds a doctorate in psychology from University College London and two other advanced degrees in psychology. He has been writing about scientific research on PsyBlog since 2004. View all posts by Dr Jeremy Dean

Join the free PsyBlog mailing list. No spam, ever.

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in: Character , Knowledge of Men , Podcast

Brett • December 11, 2019 • Last updated: July 1, 2023

Podcast #568: The Untold Story Behind the Famous Robbers Cave Experiment

In the summer of 1954, two groups of 8- to 11-year-old boys were taken to a summer camp in Oklahoma and pitted against each other in competitions for prizes. What started out as typical games of baseball and tug-of-war turned into violent night raids and fistfights, proving that humans in groups form tribal identities that create conflict.

This is the basic outline of a research study many are still familiar with today: the Robbers Cave experiment. But it’s only one part of the story.

My guest dug into the archival notes of this famous and controversial social experiment to find unknown and unreported details behind what really happened and why. Her name is Gina Perry and her book is The Lost Boys: Inside Muzafer Sherif’s Robbers Cave Experiment . We begin our conversation by discussing what the Robbers Cave experiment purported to show and the influence the experiment has had on social psychology since. We then discuss the similarities between head researcher Muzafer Sherif’s ideas about the behavior of boys in groups with those of William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies , and how both men’s ideas were influenced by their personal experiences in war. We also dig into the general connection between children’s summer camps and psychological studies in the 19th century. Then turning to the Robbers Cave experiment itself, Gina shares how that experiment wasn’t Sherif’s first attempt at this kind of field study, and how it had been preceded by another experiment in which the boys turned on the researchers. She describes how Sherif and his assistants attempted to get different results at Robbers Cave by goading the boys into greater conflict and how they got the boys to reconcile after whipping them up into a competitive frenzy. At the end of our conversation, Gina talks about finding the boys who were in the experiment and what these now grown men thought of the experience, and we discuss whether or not there’s anything to be learned from Robbers Cave on the nature of group conflict.

Show Highlights

What was the Robbers Cave experiment and what was it trying to prove?
What was the experiment’s ultimate influence on psychology?
William Golding, The Lord of the Flies , and what boys in groups can teach us about human nature
The war experiences of these famous experimenters
The proliferation of summer camps and how they fostered experimental research
Muzafer Sherif’s failed first experiment
How did Sherif convince parents to let their boys partake of such experiments?
How the Robbers Cave experiment unfolded
The ways the boys leaned into cooperation versus competition
Harnessing the power of a common cause
How was Sherif’s initial report on the experiment received?
The boys today — did they know they were part of an experiment?
What can we ultimately learn from this study? Anything?

Resources/People/Articles Mentioned in Podcast

the Milgram experiment
William Golding and Lord of the Flies
Muzafer Sherif
The Science of Competition
When to Compete and When to Cooperate
Why Every Young Man Should Play a Team Sport
The Robbers Cave Experiment by Muzafer Sherif

Connect With Gina

Gina’s website

Gina on Twitter

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Read the Transcript

Brett McKay : Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of The Art of Manliness Podcast. In the summer of 1954, two groups of 8- to 11-year-old boys were taken to a summer camp in Oklahoma and pitied against each other in competitions for prizes. What started out as typical games of baseball and tug-of-war turned into violent night raids and fist fights, proving that humans in groups form tribal identities that create conflict. This is the basic outline of a research study many are still familiar with today, The Robbers Cave Experiment. It’s only part of the story. My guest dug in the archival notes of this famous and controversial social experiment to find unknown and unreported details behind what really happened and why. Her name is Gina Perry, and her book is The Lost Boys: Inside Muzafer Sherif’s Robbers Cave Experiment.

We begin our conversation by discussing what the Robbers Cave Experiment purported to show, and the influence the experiment has had on social psychology since. We then discuss the similarities between head researcher, Muzafer Sherif’s ideas about the behavior of boys in groups and those of William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, and how both men’s ideas were influenced by their personal experiences in war. We also dig into the general connection between children summer camps and psychological studies in the 19th century.

Then, turning to the Robbers Cave Experiment itself, Gina shares how the experiment wasn’t Sherif’s first attempt at this kind of field study and how it had been proceeded by another experiment in which the boys turned on the researchers. She described how Sherif and his assistants attempted to get different results at Robbers Cave by goading the boys to greater conflict, and how they got the boys to reconcile after whipping them up into a competitive frenzy. At the end of our conversation, Gina talks about finding the boys who were in the experiment, and what these now grown men thought of the experience. We discuss whether or not there’s anything to be learned from Robbers Cave on the nature of group conflict.

After the show’s over, check out our show notes at aom.is/robberscave.

All right, Gina Perry, welcome to the show.

Gina Perry : Oh, thank you for having me.

Brett McKay : You wrote a history of the Robbers Cave Experiment, an influential landmark social psychology experiment. It’s called The Lost Boys: Inside Muzafer Sherif’s Robbers Cave Experiment. For those who aren’t familiar with the Robbers Cave Experiment, can you give us a thumbnail sketch of what it was and what it purported to show?

Gina Perry : Sure. The exploration of the experiment is about a three week experiment at Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma, obviously. What Sherif was trying to show was that if you bring two groups together and put them together, and in a competitive situation, that there will inevitably be conflict between them. There’ll be belittling of one group by the other. There’ll be negative stereotyping. This will lead, inevitably in his view, to some kind of violent altercation.

Particularly, what he was trying to show was that you can make this competition happen by putting groups in a situation where they’re competing for limited resources. And so what he did was he set these two groups up. The conflict unfolded during the time of the study. And then at the end of the camp, he brought the groups together and kind of forced them to cooperate. By forcing them to cooperate, he brought about harmony.

So what he was trying to show really was that if you can get people thinking about problems that are bigger than themselves, where they’re forced to work with people they would normally regard negatively or even as their enemies, you can establish peace and harmony. So it was really an experiment that was of its time. It was very much taking place in the context of the Cold War. That’s the kind of thing that you would read about in textbooks.

Brett McKay : What’s the influence that the experiment had on social psychology? Is it something that still gets cited today?

Gina Perry : Well, yes and no. I mean it’s a strange thing but it depends where you studied psychology and what particular text and experiments your teachers favored. This wasn’t something that occurred to me until I was well into writing this book, that often you’re taught curriculum at a university. For example, a psychology curriculum that’s being developed and has the influence of your teachers on it. And so I studied psychology here in Melbourne, Australia. Robbers Cave was never included in my studies. My daughter, however, it was in all her social psychology textbooks.

It’s not like something like Milgram’s Obedience Experiment, which is in every textbook. It’s very much about whether or not the textbooks you use include that particular study. But it is famous within the field.

Brett McKay : So the Robbers Cave Experiment, you talk about in the book, has some predecessors. There’s other … not even experiments but experiences where people saw that boys in groups acted in a certain way, particularly when there was conflict there. You talk about William Golding who was the author of Lord of the Flies. He actually had an experience with a group of boys that inspired the book. Tell us about that, and why did writers like Golding and social psychologists like Sherif think that boys, young children, could tell us about human nature on a board, general level.

Gina Perry : Well, Golding was a school teacher in England. He was a writer at that time. So, at the same time that he was teaching, he was also writing fiction. He took a large group of his students to this remote part of England, not far from the school where he taught. On Salisbury Plain, there’s this place called Figsbury Ring, which is like a flat-topped hill in the middle of Salisbury Plain. He took the boys up there and he dived them into two groups. He told them to … one group to defend the remains of an old fort up there, and the other group to attack.

I think the purpose of this was for him to observe and see what happens so that he could write about this in his own fiction. But he said that once he gave the instruction, he couldn’t believe the amount of violence that erupted between the boys, and how seriously they took this kind of make believe exercise.

For Golding, I think that really illustrated his view that human nature is ultimately flawed. In Lord of the Flies, he uses a quote … not even Lord of the Flies. But it was a quote from his fiction that I think really summarized his world view, which is that, “Man produces evil like a bee produces honey.”

So on that mound when the two groups of boys were fighting, I think Golding really saw a demonstration of that belief. Golding and Sherif were investigating these ideas around the same time. Golding, obviously, was through writing novels then through art. Sherif through science, if you like. They were interested in the idea of children as representative of human nature because I think they thought that children uncorrupted in the sense of they’re not as socialized as the rest of us. They haven’t learnt the rules and the norms. And they some how reflect human nature in its rawest form.

For them, they were able to and willing to draw a comparison between the behavior of young boys and people at large. Both of them were inspired, if that’s the right word, but both of them were very deeply influenced by their experiences, their personal experiences, of war. Golding had actually fought during World War II and been horrified by the experience. Sherif had experienced war. I discovered in looking into his background that he really had experienced war almost from the moment he was born until the time that he left his homeland, which was Turkey, as a young man. So both of them had experienced and seen firsthand incredible cruelty and violence. I think that was a major preoccupation for both of them. How does this come about?

Brett McKay : Well, and I think a difference between them that you pointed out earlier … Well, Golding said that humans by nature are evil. Sherif would say, “No, humans are actually good.” It’s just that he put them in a certain situation that will cause them to do terrible things.

Gina Perry : Yes. What was interesting to me was that even though this was downplayed in his own publications, Sherif was very definitely a Marxist. He really believed in the power of cooperation over competition. So he really believed that if you set the right conditions for a society, people will flourish and people will live in harmony. So he very much saw it as about the social conditions under which we live.

Brett McKay : More background to the Robbers Cave Experiment. I didn’t know this about summer camps in general, but summer camp from almost the beginning when the idea of summer camp came into being in America, like psychologists were there trying to figure out how can we design summer camp to help young people become well adjusted.

Gina Perry : That’s right. I found their whole history fascinating. The summer camp movement really began in the late 19th century. It was in response to a particular school teacher, again an educator. A man who felt that young men were spending too much indolent time over the summer holidays under the influence of their mothers. There was kind of an implication, I guess, that young men were at risk of becoming effeminate and useless because they were idle over the summer just doing nothing, nothing constructive in this school teacher’s eyes. So he set up the first summer camp. The notion was that he would get young boys out into nature, doing activities, learning chores. It was very much, I think, mirroring the idea that this is how the people lived in the days of the frontier. It was a character building exercise.

That theme of building spiritual strength and moral character has really always influenced I think. It’s a thing that runs through summer camps from the very beginning right up to programs like Brat Camp now where you have young people taken away to the wild and kind of tested to find their real moral strength. It seems to something that’s still persists. It’s a sort of romantic ideal of what happens when you put people … take them away from the urban environment and give them things to do that are hearty and good for them.

Psychologists got involved around the 1930s and ’40s because summer camps became really like a natural laboratory. You could study what activities were most effective in helping, for example, boys who were shy or not able to join in. How you could get children to develop the social skills they needed that they could then take back from summer camp to live a better life. So in the wake of World War II, the agenda for summer camp became how do we use summer camp to build the values of democracy? How do we use summer camp to build skills about teamwork and leadership and those kinds of things that make for a successful democratic nation?

And so that was the way in which Sherif first got involved was that someone that he knew invited him along to watch how psychologists were studying boys at a summer camp. But Sherif decided that he didn’t want to be an observer at someone else’s camp. What he’d do would be run one completely of his own. And that way he would have complete control of that environment.

Brett McKay : So that’s what he starts doing. That’s some good background, some back drop of what leading up to the Robbers Cave Experiment. The Robbers Cave Experiment, the one that got reported on, happened in 1954. But in the book, just the history of that, you kind of dig into the archives and the field notes and find that Sherif actually tried this experiment before, earlier in the ’40s, and it didn’t go as he planned and no one ever really … No one really knows about it. He didn’t write about it.

Let’s talk about that first experiment. Where was it at? How did it happen? What was the result of it?

Gina Perry : Well, he actually conducted three experiments. The Robbers Cave was the last one, but the Robbers Cave in a way was never planned. It was a last minute decision. So he conducted a first experiment in 1949 in Upstate New York. It was a very basic experiment. He was really just working out ideas. This first experiment was like a rough draft. It was just two groups of boys and brought them together in competition to see what would happen. What happened was that the two groups did develop very negative attitudes towards one another. And so that experiment ended really at that point. So he was kind of working things through.

The next experiment was supposed to be the final one. This was the big one. And yet as you say, there was no published reference to it hardly at all in Sherif’s writing, but lots of material about it in the archives. This was conduct in 1953. Again, in Upstate New York. In this experiment, he recruited a group of boys, 24 boys, and he took them to a summer camp just outside Saratoga Springs. He divided the two groups after the second day.

On the first day, he watched the boys, and he and a group, a team of his researchers, watched the groups of boys to see who was making friends and to see who was buddying up because these children didn’t know one another before they were taken to the camp. So, when he divided the boys up into two groups, he made sure that he separated the friends. This was important at this camp. Not as important as he realized, but this was a critical point.

He divided the one group into two competing groups. He kept them very separate. They were at different sides of the campsite, in separate tents, and the men kept them apart. Then he brought them together in a series of competitions like tug-of-war, baseball. And then they had things like cabin inspections, all sorts of games and competitions. He kept a scorecard in the mess hall so that the two groups could see which of the two teams was winning.

Then when he announced there was a wonderful prize for this winning team, and it was a series of very elaborate knives, one of each boy in the winning team, and a trophy. When he announced the winners of the team, that was when he expected the conflict to really come to a head because the losing team would be so outraged that they’d lost that there would be violence and his theory would play out in the wild.

What actually happened in that 1953 study, and you know I said it was a critical point that he separated groups of friends, was that the two groups did develop animosity towards one another during games, but, for example, whenever they finished a game of baseball, they would give three cheers for the losing team. Or, they would make sure that after a game they all went round and shook hands after the game was over. He found this kind of sportsmanship very … He found it disturbing because it was undermining his theory, but also he found it very difficult to get the groups to come to any kind of direct conflict.

And so, he and his team started doing things to the positions of one group, hoping that that group would blame the other. It was sort of a scapegoating exercise. For example, he would go into a tent and mess up all their things, and then hope that the other, that group would come back to their tent and be enraged and blame the others and a fight would erupt. Anyway, over a series of days the eruption never happened. It would always fizzle out. It was partly because those boys had made strong friends just in the first day, and they were feeling resentful that they’d been separated. It also meant that they wondered why they’d been separated, so they were very observant of the men. They’re always looking to the men to understand what was happening.

They were really looking for clues. Finally, the two groups were … on the night that the winners of the tournament were announced, one of Sherif’s team actually demolished one of the groups’ tents. Pulled out all their belongings, smashed things, trampled dirt through the tent, and this was meant to be the big moment. The other thing you have to remember is that Sherif only had a limited amount of time at this camp. He’d booked it for a certain amount of time. He had a certain amount of money. It was like the clock was ticking and they really had to get things happening. They had to fan the flames of this fight.

Anyway, the boys came rushing to the site of this demolished tent. But instead of blaming one another, they started talking. One group swore that they had nothing to do with the tent being demolished, and the other group believed them. So, they turned on the men. It was a kind of a mutiny. They refused to fight. They were steadfast in their cooperation with one another. Of course, Sherif was absolutely frustrated and enraged and canceled the experiment.

Brett McKay : Well, it sounds like his theory was kind of proven right. Right? There was a conflict. It was just the boys versus the counselors who were actually the researchers.

Gina Perry : That’s right. This is what’s so ironic for me. In all of these three studies that Sherif conducted was that he seemed unable to recognize that his own group of researchers, even though they pretended to be camp staff, they were adults. It was as if he was blind to their own influence as a powerful group in that camp. Yes, his own theory was proven.

In fact, what was ironic in that 1953 study was that the conflict erupted between the men running the camp, and they ended up having a head on confrontation on the night of the drama. So although the boys didn’t fight, the men certainly did.

Brett McKay : Well, something we need to talk about is the set up of the experiment. How did Sherif convince parents to send their boys to a camp where he would be trying to instigate conflict between boys? What did he tell them to sell them on this?

Gina Perry : Well, when I looked at the versions of the letters that he wrote between the first study in 1949 and then the final one in 1954, I noticed that he got better at being vague, and better at saying the sorts of things that would appeal to parents at that place and that time. It’s worth pointing out that he, in all three cases, he picked boys whose families would not normally be able to afford to send their children to camp. He targeted parents on lower income, and made the camp free. In particular, by the time the Robbers Cave study came around, the letter that he wrote to the parents talked about, really, and remember it was on notepaper that was headed Yale University, and in the instance of 1953. And then in 1954 it was the University of Oklahoma.

There was, obviously, an authority there about the association with the university that he was working for that worked in his favor. But he also played up the idea that this camp was about learning skills for leadership, which in a way, I guess, is not incorrect. But he certainly didn’t mention that it was an experiment. He talked about it being a study, but he didn’t talk about conflict or victimization or the separation of boys into, basically, tribes.

What’s also interesting was that by the time he was recruiting in Oklahoma, his graduate student, OJ Harvey, did the recruitment in Oklahoma City. OJ said that Sherif played a much more minor role at that point because he had a very heavy Turkish accent. OJ Harvey felt that would arouse people’s suspicions, mainly because there was, I guess, a lot of suspicion of foreigners at that time, and that it would be better if someone from Oklahoma did the contact with the parents. So, OJ Harvey, unusually, they didn’t do this in the other studies, but OJ Harvey actually went to the boys’ homes in Oklahoma City and met the parents. I think that personal approach made a big difference too.

Basically, the parents did not know it was an experiment. They were not aware that there would be an encouragement of conflict or violence. They were pleased that their boys had been selected and had this, what they saw as a terrific opportunity. What parent would turn that down?

Brett McKay : So there was deception. This wouldn’t happen today. Ethics would not allow you to do that, what he did, correct?

Gina Perry : No. There are ethics review boards now in place that mean that people, when they’re planning experiments, have to get approval from the university. So, no ethics review boards would not condone it today.

I’m always a bit weary of that argument because I always think, “Well, what about the men themselves? Surely, we don’t need external review boards to tell us what feels right and what feels wrong.” I think they were well aware of the ethical issues with their studies, but they chose to ignore them in favor of doing this research.

Brett McKay : Well, you mention that in the second experiment they had sort of a guy on staff, a researcher who was there, supposed to be the experimental or the conscious. Right? Be like, “Hey, this is sort of stepping the lines,” but in the third experiment, the final experiment, the Robbers Cave Experiment, that guy was not there. Let’s talk about that final experiment. Sherif was just desperate. His funding was from the Rockefeller Foundation. They were sort of hammering him like, “Hey, what happened to all that money we gave you on these experiments about group conflict?” And so he put together the Robbers Cave Experiment like on a lark. It was just completely improvised. What did he do different with this experiment compared to the previous experiment that he considered a failure and he didn’t talk about ever again?

Gina Perry : Well, I think what’s so interesting is that after that second experiment failed, he met with his two favorite graduate students, OJ Harvey and Jack White, both of whom were Native American students. They met around the campfire after the experiment had been canceled. They agreed that they would give it one last go, but only on the condition that Sherif was not in charge because he was too temperamental. He had way too much invested, and he was emotionally quite volatile.

What was interesting was that Robbers Cave was actually managed and run by OJ Harvey, who is from Oklahoma himself. OJ was a very good organizer. The Robbers Cave Experiment they ran on the smell of an oily rag. They had so little money left. They had to really cut corners. In the 1953 study, I think they had around 12 staff. At Robbers Cave they had four. They did improvise in the sense that it was an unplanned experiment, but in other ways OJ and the rest of them really did as much as they could to make Robbers Cave a success in their eyes as they called.

For example, instead of allowing the boys to mix together at the beginning of the experiment and then separating them, they brought the boys to the campsite at Robbers Cave on two separate days in two separate buses and kept them absolutely far apart so that neither group was aware that the other group was there. And each group felt like they owned the park. There was no one else there at the time, so they were climbing the rocks, they were exploring, they were swimming in the creek. They were doing all sorts of things in a small group of 12 believing that they kind of owned the place. So they developed a much stronger group identity before they were brought into contact with the second group.

The other thing the men really made sure of this time around at Robbers Cave was that they headed off any attempts by the groups to hold out a hand or cooperate with the other group. This was a problem, as I said, in the middle study. For example, I found in the notes that one of the groups at Robbers Cave, very early on in the camp, it was one boy’s birthday. The caretaker and his wife, Ida Blocksom was the woman who did the cooking with her sister at the Robbers Cave State Park. They’d made a birthday cake for this boy. The boy asked the men … By this stage they knew there was a second group in the park. The boy whose birthday it was asked the men if they could invite the other group in for the birthday celebration. The mens blocked that attempt saying, “No, the other group were busy.”

But the other group could hear this party happening. So you can imagine there’s a group of boys who were sitting out in the dark hearing the sounds of this lovely birthday party going on in the mess hall and they haven’t been invited. There was a natural sense of resentment because in a normal circumstances you would expect one group to include the other. So the men were much better at Robbers Cave at ensuring that the sorts of behaviors that had, they felt, derailed the middle experiment didn’t occur at Robbers Cave.

Brett McKay : So in this experiment they kept the two groups of boys separate at first before bringing them together for the competitions. And this time, the groups developed a more distinct group identity. Each team made their own shirts. They had their own flag. It seems like the antagonism and the competition between them was more intense too. Tell us what happened with that.

Gina Perry : You’ve been to Robbers Cave, and your listeners who’ve been Robbers Cave in summer know that it’s a extremely hot place.

Brett McKay : Yes.

Gina Perry : So this competition unfolded in very hot weather. It was a very intense few days because they were so many activities where they were competing with the boys. They kept the two groups neck and neck. And then on the night that the winners of the tournament were announced, one group, who were the losers, decided that they would conduct a night raid. It was after midnight.

The two groups were called the Rattlers and the Eagles. The Rattlers group decided that they were going to conduct a night raid on the Eagles. Now this is something that comes up a lot in summer camp. People conduct raids on one another. But this was a bit more serious in the sense that it was well and truly the middle of the night. The Eagles were asleep. The Rattlers descended on their cabin. They climbed through the windows. They were yelling and screaming. They were dressed with camouflage, dressed in camouflage. They terrorized the Eagles group. They messed up their cabin in a serious way and really left the Eagles group terrified and crying.

Interestingly, one of the reasons that the Eagles were so terrified was there was this incredibly bright light that went off just as the screaming began. That was because one of the men was with the Rattlers crew and he was taking photos of the raid. And so again, that was an indication to me of how the men somehow believed that they were invisible or I don’t know what they thought, but here they were accompanying the boys on a raid. That was the other striking thing to me about Robbers Cave was that their involvement in the conflict between the two groups actually gave the boys very strong messages about what they wanted the children to do.

On a normal summer camp where you would expect a camp counselor to say, “No, listen. A night raid is not on.” Or a camp counselor might say, “All right. Look, you can do a night raid but we’re going to give the other group a warning,” or whatever. This guy accompanied them, took photos, and basically stood by and watched as they vandalized one group and terrorized them. So the conflict really came to a head the next day. One group confronted the other. The boys, it just erupted into a huge fist fight, and the men had to pull them apart.

So in Sherif’s terms, at Robbers Cave, his theory had been proven. He described that experiment very much as if he’d watched natural behavior unfolding. But when I looked at the archival material and when I interviewed some of the boys and when I talked to OJ Harvey, I got a very different picture of that experiment. OJ Harvey himself said that Muzafer Sherif had a very distinct script in mind, and that it was his job to make sure that they delivered on that.

Brett McKay : Yes. I mean and the report, the final report, you get this idea that the boys just naturally, spontaneously started conflicting with each other and broke out in violence. But as you note and if you look at the research you notes, you can say, “Well, no. They’re kind of nudged in that direction by the researchers themselves.” I think even to the third experiment, they were sort of … while the researchers tried to prevent the boys from cooperating and extending good sportsmanship, they’d try to at the beginning. There’d be, like you mentioned the birthday party, but they’d always squash that and be like, “Well, that’s not going to happen. There’s a result we got to get and you got to give it to us.”

Gina Perry : Well, that’s right. And you know what was interesting was the boys would suggest things. So in the notes I found, for example, that the Eagles, after the night raid, they went to their counselor or their counselor, obviously, came to their cabin because he could probably guess that they were going to be wanting to talk to him about it because they’re all so upset. They said to him, “The other team should be penalized and disqualified from the competition for their behavior.” So they were actively suggesting ways to make sure that there were consequences for bad behavior. And for those boys, they were ignored. The men, obviously, did not take that on board.

Brett McKay : This is the second phase of the experiment. There’s this conflict. And then the third phase, the third part of Sherif’s theory was that if you give these conflicting groups a common cause you can actually bring them together again and unify them. How did he do that? He never got this far with the other experiments, so he was in uncharted territory.

Gina Perry : Totally uncharted. When I spoke to OJ Harvey about this, he said, “Look, we were just making it up as we were going along.” By that he meant they were working it out, just not … day by day really, as you say. So what they did was they announced one morning, after breakfast, that the water supply seemed to not be working. There was a problem and they needed volunteers to help them work out what was happening. I think all of the boys actually volunteered. But anyway, there was a water tank up on the hill above the mess hall that had a line that ran down to the hall itself.

The boys had to climb this rocky hill behind the mess hall. Again, a reminder it’s very hot in Robbers Cave. They’ve got very little water in their canteens because the water supply, supposedly has failed. So they’re hot and they’re thirsty. They’re having to move rocks off the line to actually test it to see if there’s a leak or what it is that is the problem. So they’re slowly making their way up this hill, and they’re working in two separate groups. But eventually, they get to the top of the hill and they find that there’s been a rock fall, and that the line has been buried and presumably damaged by this fall of rocks. Of course, the rocks were put there by the men the night before.

So the boys, again, in their separate teams are removing the rocks one by one. They realize, eventually, that if they work as a single group they’ll get the job done more quickly, they’ll get out of the heat, and they’ll be able to get fresh, cool water. So gradually, they start working together as a single group. This was the beginning or the blurring of the boundaries between the two groups. The beginning of the breaking down of the identification of one group, you know, the Rattlers feeling so strongly that they were Rattlers and the Eagles feeling so strongly that they were Eagles. And they became, eventually, this was over a number of days, this was the first of a number of activities that the men instigated.

For example, the next day they pretended that the truck had broken down and they need the boys to push. Again, all activities that were meant to involve what Sherif called a super ordinate goal. That is a problem that two groups have that is too big for them to solve as individual groups, so they have to come together for a solution. So the Robbers Cave had, if you like, a happy ending. The two groups dissolved. They reformed as one big happy group. And Sherif’s theory, again, was demonstrated. I read that slightly differently though because I think the boys were actually very relieved to be allowed to be cooperative children again, working together and having fun instead of having to take part in this competition where they must’ve been aware of this under current of anxiety and tension, particularly amongst the men.

Brett McKay : So the experiment in Sherif’s mind was a success. They wrote the book, the report. How was it received immediately when it was published?

Gina Perry : Once the Robbers Cave Experiment was over, Sherif wrote the book very quickly. It was a report of the experiment. He sent it out to psychologists around the country. It was very well received in the sense that I think a lot of people felt like it was an absolutely groundbreaking experiment. When you think that it was a field experiment conducted over a period of three weeks, and the fact that it seemed to work out Sherif’s theory so powerfully, it did have a big impact.

Brett McKay : So you, part of your research of the book, you wanted to find out what happened to the boys in this experiment. How did you find the boys that took part in the experiment? By now they’re in their, I guess, their late 60s, maybe 70s. Did they even know they were part of experiment and what did they feel like when they found out that it was … that summer camp was an experiment?

Gina Perry : Well, I found them one by one. There were some, for example, OJ Harvey remembered the names of a couple. And then once I met another one who remembered the names of another couple, I was able to track down some that way. But obviously, I didn’t have … I wasn’t able to contact all of them. But the ones I did contact, I was surprised when I did contact them because I thought I’d be interviewing them about their memories of the experiment, that they would tell me what had happened. But when I first contacted them it became very clear that they’d never been told it was an experiment.

In fact, they had more questions for me than I had questions for them in a way. They wanted to know all about it. They wanted to know how their parents had agreed. They wanted to know who was behind it. They really wanted to know what they were being tested for. And they kind of wanted to know whether or not they’d passed that test. That really shaped my research because I felt that I was actually uncovering a story for them as well as for myself and my readers because I was putting together a narrative that was richer and deeper than the one that Sherif produced.

If you read Sherif’s book about the Robbers Cave Experiment, it’s definitely written for people in psychology. As an account of the experiment, it’s a scientific report. It doesn’t answer the sorts of questions that those now adult boys have.

Brett McKay : When you ask them what they remembered about the camp experience, were their memories positive? Was it negative? Was it both? What did they think about the camp?

Gina Perry : I think it’s fair to say … I did interview boys who did the 1953 experiment as well as those who were involved at Robbers Cave. I think most of them would say that there were times when it was an unpleasant experience. For most of them, as I said earlier, it was their first experience of summer camp, so they didn’t really have that much to compare it to. Although the ones who had older brothers or sisters who’d been on camp did … they’d heard about camp and what was expected. But most of them had ambivalent feelings I’d say.

Some of them I spoke to had very happy memories of Robbers Cave, but they were happy memories about parts of the camp. One person I interviewed talked quite vividly about the joint activities that they did at the end. Of course, that’s not the way he thought about it necessarily. But after the problem with the water tank, the boys went on a trip to Heaveana. It was in the stage when they’re all one big group. One person described that truck journey sitting in the back of the truck with the dust flying up in their faces, all of them sitting together as quite a happy memory. Then on the other hand, there was also vivid memories in the Rattlers group of a boy who was a real bully. And a couple of the men still remembered him very well.

I was very struck by the amount that most of them remembered. Particularly, the Robbers Cave people that I spoke to, their memories were very vivid. That really added to the story from my point of view. But as I say, there was a sense of disquiet too. I mean if you can imagine if you get a letter from someone out of the blue, not only out of the blue, from the other side of the world, and that person’s telling you that you were in an experiment when you were a child and that they want to interview you about it. I mean you would feel a lot of mixed emotions I imagine. You’d feel excited, curious, but also perhaps a bit nervous about what had been involved.

And so that was part of my job really. I felt, in the end, that it became a story that I wrote for the participants in the experiment because … and this was something that came up for me with my Milgram book as well where I interviewed subjects, people who took part in Milgram’s experiment, is that so often in psychological research people are referred to as subjects, as if they’re faceless, nameless individuals. But these are people who volunteered their time, or in the case of the boys, didn’t volunteer their time but were participants in an experiment that gains fame or notoriety.

They have no control over what’s written about them or how they’re depicted. In both Milgram’s case and in Sherif’s, the subjects were depicted in very unfair ways I felt. Very misleading.

Brett McKay : All right, so to sum things up, Sherif believed that when groups are competing over resources, they strengthen their separate group identity and become antagonistic against other groups. But, they can be reconciled if they work together to address a bigger common problem. And while that might be true, the Robbers Cave study didn’t do a good job of proving it because it seems like, the way you described it, is that Sherif just orchestrated the study to confirm his theory. And what really happened in the experiments is the boys naturally wanted to cooperate all along, and it was researchers who goaded them into having more conflict.

So can we ultimately learn anything from the Robbers Cave Experiment? Did it give us any insight about why groups fight with each other? And if not, have we gained more insight about how that happens since the study?

Gina Perry : Well, it’s interesting. I struggled with this a bit myself. What can you conclude from it? As you say, you can conclude that adults can manipulate children to do things that they wouldn’t normally do. But on another level, I think what’s important, really important, about the Robbers Cave Experiment and especially when you compare it with social psychological research subsequently is that Sherif was really attempting to grapple with big problems. There was something about that big vision that I think is really worth holding onto. We do want to do understand and we should try and understand how are these that people develop animosity and hostility towards other groups in their community, whether it’s on the basis of skin color or religion or gender, and looking at ways to break that down is really important.

I don’t want to throw that away. I think that’s really important. I think that I’m not so sure that that research has advanced necessarily though because we still have the same issues today. But I still think it’s worth, really, really worthwhile investigating. And in a way, despite my reservations about the participants in the research, I think that Sherif’s commitment to investigating that issue is really worth celebrating.

Brett McKay : Well, Gina, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

Gina Perry : I’ve got a website. It’s www.gina-perry.com. There is a hyphen between the Gina and the Perry, or a dash.

Brett McKay : Well, fantastic. Gina Perry, thanks for your time. It’s been a pleasure.

Gina Perry : Thank you.

Brett McKay : My guest today was Gina Perry. She is the author of the book The Lost Boys: Inside Muzafer Sherif’s Robbers Cave Experiment. It’s available Amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find out more information about Gina’s work at her website gina-perry.com. That’s Gina with a G. Also, check out our show notes at aom.is/robberscave where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic.

Well, that wraps up another addition of the AOM Podcast. Check out our website at artofmanliness.com where you can find our podcast archives as well as thousands or articles we’ve written over the years. And if you like to enjoy ad-free episodes of the AOM Podcast, you can do so on Stitcher Premium. Head over to stitcherpremium.com. Sign up. Use code manliness to get a month free trial. Once you’re signed up, download the stitcher app on android or IOS and you can start listening to new episodes of the AOM Podcast ad free.

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A New Look at the Classic Robbers Cave Experiment

A sports tournament led boys to something like inter-tribal war..

Posted December 9, 2009

[ Social media counts reset to zero on this post.]

I begin with a research story, a true one.

In the early 1950s, the social psychologist Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues conducted a now-classic experiment, on intergroup conflict and resolution of conflict, with 11- and 12-year-old boys at a summer camp in Oklahoma's Robbers Cave Park.[1] Sherif's procedure involved three phases:

(1) He began by dividing the boys, by a random procedure, into two distinct groups, who slept in different parts of the camp and were given separate sets of chores and activities, so they could develop a sense of group identity .

(2) Then he established conditions designed to induce hostility between the two groups. (Experiments of this sort could be done in the 1950s--a time before the era of research ethics review boards, and a time, before cell phones, when parents did not feel compelled to check up on their camping kids. The boys did not know they were participants in an experiment; they thought that they had been invited to take part in a regular camping experience.)

(3) Once the groups were sufficiently hostile, he tried various methods to reduce the hostility.

The famous result of the experiment--repeated in most introductory psychology textbooks, including my own--was that hostilities were best reduced by establishing superordinate goals , defined as goals that were desired by both groups and could be achieved best through intergroup cooperation . For example, to create one such goal the researchers staged a breakdown in the camp's water supply. In response to this crisis, the boys temporarily forgot their differences and worked cooperatively to explore the mile-long water line and find the break. With each such cooperative adventure, hostilities between the groups abated, and by the end of a series of such adventures the boys were arranging many friendly cross-group interactions on their own initiative.

Sherif's focus in this experiment was on ways to reduce intergroup hostility, but my focus here is on his method for creating the hostility, something not generally discussed in the textbooks. His procedure was remarkably simple. In phase two he invited the two groups of boys to compete with one another in a tournament involving a series of competitive games--including several games of baseball, touch football, and tug of war--all refereed by the camp staff. The members of the winning team would receive prizes, such as pocketknives, that were much valued by the boys. Formal sports conducted for prizes--that was how Sherif and is colleagues generated animosity between the groups. It apparently worked like a charm, not just in this experiment, but also in others that Sherif and his colleagues had conducted earlier.

As the series of games progressed, the two groups became increasingly antagonistic. Initial good sportsmanship gave way gradually to name-calling, harassment, accusations of cheating, and cheating in retaliation. As the hostilities mounted, they spread to camp life outside of the games as well as in the games. Even though the boys all came from the same background (white, Protestant, middle class) and had been divided into groups by a purely random procedure, they began to think of the boys in the other group as very different from themselves--as dirty cheaters who needed to be taught a lesson. Serious fistfights broke out on several occasions. Raids were conducted on the cabin of the opposing group. Some boys carried socks with stones in them, to use as weapons "if necessary." One group pulled down and burned the other group's flag. Many of the boys declared a desire not to eat meals in the same mess hall with the other group; and joint meals, when held, became battlegrounds where boys hurled insults and sometimes food at members of the other group. What at first was a peaceful camping experience turned gradually into something verging on intertribal warfare, all created by a series of formal sporting events.

Formal sports occupy a precarious space between play and reality

Let's step back momentarily from this experiment and reflect a bit on boys' play in general.

Much of boys' play involves mock battles. In some cases the battles lie purely in the realm of fantasy . The boys collaboratively create the battle scenes, decide who will play which parts, and, as they go along, decide who is wounded, or dies, or is resurrected. Some people, who don't understand boys' play, mistake such play for violence and try to stop it, especially when it is acted out in a vigorous, rough-and-tumble manner. But it isn't violence; it's play. We should think of those players not as warriors but as junior improvisational Shakespeares. They are using their imaginations to create and stage dramatic, emotion -inspiring stories. Play of this sort is non-competitive as well as nonviolent. No score is kept; nobody wins or loses; all are just acting out parts. There are also no fixed teams in play of this sort. If the play involves pretend armies, the players arrange the armies differently for each bout of play. Such play does not create enemies; rather, it cements friendships.

A step removed from such fantasy battles is the informal play of team games such as baseball, soccer, and basketball--games that are referred to as "sports" when played formally. These games, too, can be thought of as mock battles. There are two teams (armies), who invade one another's territory, defend their own territory from invaders, and strive to conquer one another, all ritualized by the rules of the game. By "informal" play of these games, I mean that the games are organized entirely by the players and have no obvious consequences outside of the game context. There are no trophies or prizes, no official records of victories or losses kept from one game to the next, no fans who praise winners or disparage losers. These games may be classed as "competitive," but they are really, at most, only pseudo-competitive. A score may be kept, and the players may cheer happily each time their team scores, but, in the end, nobody cares who won. The "losers" go home just as happy as the "winners." These games, too, cement friendships and do not create enemies. I wrote about the valuable lessons learned in play of this sort in my post of Nov. 11, 2009 .

If the boys in Sherif's experiments had played informal games of baseball, touch football, and tug of war, rather than formal ones, I doubt that hostilities would have resulted. With no prizes or acknowledgments of victories and losses from outside authorities, the players would have focused more on having fun and less on winning. With no adult referee, the players would have had to cooperate to establish the ground rules for each game and judge consensually when rules had or had not been broken. They would have had to argue out and negotiate their differences. Cheating and name calling, if they went too far, would destroy the fun and end the game. Players who weren't having fun would quit, so the only way to keep the game going would be to play in ways designed to ensure that everyone had fun. Boys everywhere know how to do that. In fact, it is reasonable to suppose that such informal games, if they occurred, would have brought the two groups of boys closer together because of the cooperation required, much like searching for the break in the water line.

Fantasy battles and informal sports are pure play, and pure play creates friendships, not enemies. Formal sports are not pure play, and therefore they have the capacity, under some conditions, to create enemies. Formal sports lie outside of the realm of pure play because they are controlled by officials who are not themselves players and because they have clear out-of-game consequences, in such forms as prizes or praise for victory. (See Nov. 19, 2008 , post on the definition of play.) In formal sports it is not as clear as it is in informal sports that the battle is merely a pretend battle.

Formal sports occupy a space somewhere between play and reality, and, depending on a wide array of factors, a formal game can shift more toward one than the other. When the balance shifts too far toward reality, a defeat is a real defeat, not a pretend one, and those defeated may begin to perceive the other team as real enemies. Sherif and his colleagues apparently found a formula for setting up formal sports in a manner that quickly moved from play to real battles.

And now, what do you think about this? … This blog is, in part, a forum for discussion. Your questions, thoughts, stories, and opinions are treated respectfully by me and other readers, regardless of the degree to which we agree or disagree. Psychology Today no longer accepts comments on this site, but you can comment by going to my Facebook profile, where you will see a link to this post. If you don't see this post near the top of my timeline, just put the title of the post into the search option (click on the three-dot icon at the top of the timeline and then on the search icon that appears in the menu) and it will come up. By following me on Facebook you can comment on all of my posts and see others' comments. The discussion is often very interesting.

----------- NOTES [1] Sherif, M., Harvey, O. J., White, B. J., Hood, W. E., & Sherif, C. S. (1961). Intergroup conflict and cooperation: The Robbers Cave experiment . Norman: University of Oklahoma Book Exchange.

Peter Gray, Ph.D. , is a research professor at Boston College, author of Free to Learn and the textbook Psychology (now in 8th edition), and founding member of the nonprofit Let Grow.

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IMAGES

Inside Robbers Cave
The Dark Side of Science: The Robbers Cave Experiment 1954 (Short Documentary)
Robber's Cave Experiment by Rachel Weiss on Prezi
The Robbers Cave Experiment Of 1954
Robbers Cave Experiment by Amanda Gresko on Prezi
The Robbers Cave Experiment

COMMENTS

Robbers Cave Experiment
The Robbers Cave Experiment, conducted by Muzafer Sherif in the 1950s, studied intergroup conflict and cooperation among 22 boys in Oklahoma. Initially separated into two groups, they developed group identities. Introducing competitive tasks led to hostility between groups. Later, cooperative tasks reduced this conflict, highlighting the role of shared goals in resolving group tensions.
What Was the Robbers Cave Experiment in Psychology?
Elizabeth Hopper. Updated on November 21, 2019. The Robbers Cave experiment was a famous psychology study that looked at how conflict develops between groups. The researchers divided boys at a summer camp into two groups, and they studied how conflict developed between them. They also investigated what did and didn't work to reduce group conflict.
The Robbers Cave Experiment: Realistic Conflict Theory
As a field experiment, the Robbers Cave study attempted to create the sort of intergroup conflict that impacts people from all walks of life the world over. While the study was a success and had a good outcome, critics argue that the study suffers from a number of possible problems. Artificially-created situation: First, while Sherif and his ...
Robbers Cave Experiment
The Robbers Cave experiment, once known for its fascinating insight into group conflict theory, is now more infamous than famous. Regardless of its reputation, it remains one of the most well-known social psychology experiments of the 20th century. ... Sherif wanted to show how easily groups could turn on each other when they were fighting for ...
Robbers Cave Experiment (SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY)
The Robbers Cave experiment has had an enormous impact on the field of social psychology. First, this study has implications for the contact hypothesis of prejudice reduction, which, in its simplest form, posits that contact between members of different groups improves how well groups get along. This experiment illustrates how contact alone is ...
Realistic conflict theory
The 1954 Robbers Cave experiment (or Robbers Cave study) by Muzafer Sherif and Carolyn Wood Sherif represents one of the most widely known demonstrations of RCT. [4] The Sherifs' study was conducted over three weeks in a 200-acre summer camp in Robbers Cave State Park, Oklahoma, focusing on intergroup behavior. [3] In this study, researchers posed as camp personnel, observing 22 eleven- and ...
Sherif s Robbers Cave Experiment
Explorable.com 127.2K reads. Sherif's classic social psychology experiment named Robbers Cave Experiment dealt with in-group relations, out-group relations and intergroup relations. The experiment focused heavily on the concept of a 'group' and what a perception of belonging to a group can actually do to the relationships of members within it ...
A New Look at the Classic Robbers Cave Experiment
I begin with a research story, a true one. In the early 1950s, the social psychologist Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues conducted a now-classic experiment, on intergroup conflict and resolution ...
The Robbers Cave Psychology Experiment
The Robbers Cave Psychology Experiment. A 20th-century study disguised as a summer camp for boys revealed a lot about group dynamics and conflict. Read on to learn more. Between 1949 and 1954, Muzafer Sherif and colleagues studied inter-group conflict and cooperation among pre-teen boys at summer camps. From their studies they learned a lot ...
The Myths and History of Robbers Cave and Jesse James
During the late 1800s, Civil War deserters and outlaws reportedly hid in the cave, including—most famously—the Jesse James Gang. In choosing this hideout, Jesse didn't leave things to chance. The area around Robbers Cave offered several strategic advantages that made it the perfect outlaw refuge.
Robbers Cave experiment
At the end of the third week, the two groups were so friendly that they chose to travel home on the same bus. See also realistic group conflict theory, social identity theory. Compare jigsaw classroom. [Named after Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma, where the experiment took place]
Robbers Cave Experiment: The Real-Life 'Lord Of The Flies'
There, in Robbers Cave State Park, he intended to conduct an unprecedented social experiment that involved pitting sparsely supervised 12-year-old boys against each other in the Oklahoma wilderness. This was the Robbers Cave experiment, and its startling outcome would inspire the harrowing book Lord of the Flies just a year later. Nearly six ...
Robbers Cave
During the 1950s, the landmark Robbers Cave experiment demonstrated that when groups must compete with one another, intergroup conflict, hostility, and even violence may result. At the Oklahoman summer camp, two troops of boys—termed the Rattlers and the Eagles—took part in a week-long tournament. During this time, their negativity ...
The Robbers Cave Experiment
STAGE ONE: TWENTY-TWO YOUNG BOYS. In the summer of 1954, an increasingly well-known social psychologist, Muzafer Sherif, randomly selected twenty-two well-adjusted boys about 12 years old and from similar, middle-class backgrounds. They were all in the same year at school but had never interacted with one another before.
Introducing, Managing and Resolving Conflict: The Robbers Cave Experiment
How the Robbers Cave Experiment was done. The experiment included 22 boys, aged 11-12 who thought they were going on summer camp at Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma, USA. They had similar backgrounds - Protestants and living in two-parent households. They did not know each other prior to the study.
The Robbers Cave experiment Muzafer Sherif social psychology
The Robbers Cave ExperimentMuzafer Sherif et al (1954) The Robbers Cave experiment on intergroup conflict and co-operation was carried out by Muzafer and Carolyn Sherif and others as a part of research program at the University of Oklahoma. This large-scale Intergroup Relations Project was established as an interdisciplinary "psychological" and ...
PDF Forgotten Classic: The Robbers Cave Experiment
Muzafer Sherif's classic work, best known as the "Robbers Cave experi-. ment" has become a forgotten monograph within a forgotten specialty. In 1954 Sherif and his colleagues at the University of Oklahoma selected a group of 20 boys, divided them in two groups (the Eagles and the Rattlers), bussed them to a state park, and watched for 3 weeks ...
Robbers Cave Experiment: Social Identity & Intergroup Relations
Robbers Cave. During the 1950s, the landmark Robbers Cave experiment demonstrated that when groups must compete with one another, intergroup conflict, hostility, and even violence may result. At the Oklahoman summer camp, two troops of boys—termed the Rattlers and the Eagles—took part in a week-long tournament.
Robbers Cave Experiment: How Group Conflicts Develop
The Robbers Cave experiment was a famous social psychology study of how prejudice and conflict emerged between two group of boys. The Robbers Cave experiment, conducted in 1954 by psychologist Muzafer Sherif, aimed to explore intergroup conflict among children. The experiment showed that when two groups compete, it leads to hostility and ...
Robbers Cave Experiment
After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is/robberscave. All right, Gina Perry, welcome to the show. Gina Perry: Oh, thank you for having me.. Brett McKay: You wrote a history of the Robbers Cave Experiment, an influential landmark social psychology experiment.It's called The Lost Boys: Inside Muzafer Sherif's Robbers Cave Experiment.
Muzafer Sherif
What did the Robbers Cave experiment show? The Robbers Cave experiment showed that hostility can arise between two groups in conflict and competition for scarce resources. In the case of the ...
A New Look at the Classic Robbers Cave Experiment
I begin with a research story, a true one. In the early 1950s, the social psychologist Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues conducted a now-classic experiment, on intergroup conflict and resolution ...

Robbers Cave Experiment | Realistic Conflict Theory

The hypotheses tested were:

Study Procedure

Phase 2: Group Conflict (4-5 Days)

Phase 3: Conflict Resolution (6-7 Days)

The Drinking Water Problem

Critical Evaluation

Further Information

What Was the Robbers Cave Experiment in Psychology?

Key Takeaways: The Robbers Cave Study

Overview of the Study

What the Researchers Found

How Conflict Was Reduced

Realistic Conflict Theory

Critiques of the Study

What Robbers Cave Teaches Us About Human Behavior

Sources and Additional Reading

The Robbers Cave Experiment: Realistic Conflict Theory

An Overview of the Robbers Cave Experiment

Group Formation and Bonding Phase of the Experiment

The Competition Phase of the Robbers Cave Experiment

The Integration Phase of the Robbers Cave Experiment

Sherif’s Conclusions

Criticisms of the Robbers Cave Experiment

Robbers Cave Experiment

What Is the Robbers Cave Experiment?

Who is Muzafer Sherif?

How the Robbers Cave Experiment Was Conducted

Setting Up the Robbers Cave Experiment

Final Results of Robbers Cave Experiment

Realistic Conflict Theory

Criticisms of the Robbers Cave Experiment

Middle Grove Experiment

Robbers Cave Experiment vs. Lord of the Flies

Legacy of the Robbers Cave Experiment and Muzafer Sherif

Other Examples of Realistic Conflict Theory

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Sherif’s Robbers Cave Experiment

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Background of the Experiment

Three Phases of the Experiment

Phase 1 (In-Group Formation)

Phase 2 (Friction Phase)

Phase 3 (Integration Phase)

Observations

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The Robbers Cave Experiment

STAGE ONE: TWENTY-TWO YOUNG BOYS

STAGE TWO: TROUBLE BREWS

STAGE THREE: PACIFYING TENSIONS

STAGE NEXT: APPLYING IT TO OUR OWN LIVES

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Introducing, Managing and Resolving Conflict: The Robbers Cave Experiment

How the Robbers Cave Experiment was done

Results of the Robbers Cave Experiment

The Robbers Cave experiment Muzafer Sherif

Chapter 7: Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination

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