Robber's cave experiment

ROBBER'S CAVE EXPERIMENT

Social psychology

Student: Nandhini TP

Student: Sreejani Sarkar

Student: Swetha Sudheer

Phase 1

Social Psychology?

Social Psychologists

Phase 2

Phase 3

Muzafer Sherif

index

Outcomes

Carolyn Sherif

Hypothesis

Critical Evaluation

References

Overview

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Social Psychology

• It, therefore, looks at human behavior as influenced by other people and the conditions under which social behavior and feelings occur.
• Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the relationship between mental state and social situation, studying the social conditions under which thoughts, feelings, and behaviors occur and how these variables influence social interactions.

Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, beliefs, intentions and goals are constructed within a social context by the actual or imagined interactions with others.

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGISTS

Prominent Social Psychologists and their contributions

Social Psychologists

• Allport (Social Facilitation)
• Bandura (Social Learning Theory)
• Festinger (Cognitive Dissonance)
• Tajfel (Social Identity Theory)
• Wiener (Attribution Theory)
• Milgram (Shock Experiment)
• Haney, Banks, Zimbardo (Stanford Prison Experiment)

Social Psychologists

MUZAFER SHERIF

Sherif was a founder of modern social psychology who developed several unique and powerful techniques for understanding social processes, particularly social norms and social conflict.

Many of his original contributions to social psychology have been absorbed into the field so fully that his role in the development and discovery has disappeared. Other reformulations of social psychology have taken his contributions for granted, and re-presented his ideas as new.

Muzafer Sherif

Muzafer Sherif was a Turkish American social psychologist. He helped develop social judgment theory and realistic conflict theory.

musafer sherif

CAROLYN SHERIF

Carolyn Sherif

She also assumed a leading role in psychology both nationally as well as internationally.

In addition to performing seminal social psychology research, Wood Sherif devoted herself to teaching her students and was recognized for her efforts with an American Psychological Association award named in her honor that is presented annually.

Carolyn Wood Sherif was an American social psychologist who helped to develop social judgment theory and contributed pioneering research in the areas of the self-system, group conflicts, corporation, and gender identity.

Carolyn Wood SHerif

EXPERIMENT

HYPOTHESIS

HYPOTHESIS

H1

H2

When individuals who don't know each other are brought together to interact in group activities in order to achieve common goals, they will produce a group structure with hierarchical statuses and roles within it.

When two in-groups, once formed, are brought into functional relationship under conditions of competition and group frustration, attitudes and appropriate hostile actions in relation to the out-group and its members will arise; these will be standardized and shared in varying degrees by group members.

Hypothesis

OVERVIEW

Overview

The field experiment involved two groups of twelve-year-old boys at Robber’s Cave State Park, Oklahoma, America.

The twenty-two boys in the study were unknown to each other and all from white middle-class backgrounds. They all shared a Protestant, two-parent background.

The boys were randomly divided by the researchers into two groups, with efforts being made to balance the physical, mental and social talents of the groups. Neither group was aware of the other’s existence.

Overview

PHASE 1

During this first phase, the groups did not know of the other group's existence.

In-group formation (5-6 days)

The boys developed an attachment to their groups throughout the first week of the camp, quickly establishing their own cultures and group norms, by doing various activities together like hiking, swimming, etc. The boys chose names for their groups, The Eagles and The Rattlers, and stenciled them onto shirts and flags.

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

At the camp, the groups were kept separate from each other and were encouraged to bond as two individual groups through the pursuit of common goals that required co-operative discussion, planning and execution.

In group Formation

PHASE 2

Phase 2: Group Conflict

• A series of competitive activities (e.g. baseball, tug-of-war etc.) were arranged with a trophy being awarded on the basis of accumulated team score.
• There were also individual prizes for the winning group such as a medal and a multi-bladed pocket knife with no consolation prizes being given to the "losers."
• The Rattlers' reaction to the informal announcement of a series of contests was absolute confidence in their victory! They spent the day talking about the contests and making improvements on the ball field, which they took over as their own to such an extent that they spoke of putting a "Keep Off" sign there! They ended up putting their Rattler flag on the pitch. At this time, several Rattlers made threatening remarks about what they would do if anybody from The Eagles bothered their flag.

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

Sherif now arranged the 'competition stage' where friction between the groups was to occur over the next 4-6 days. In this phase it was intended to bring the two groups into competition with each other in conditions that would create frustration between them.

Group Conflict

Phase 2: Group Conflict

Then the next day, the Rattler's ransacked The Eagle's cabin, overturned beds, and stole private property. The groups became so aggressive with each other that the researchers had to physically separate them.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 favorable terms, and the other out-group in very unfavorable terms.Keep in mind that the participants in this study were well-adjusted boys, not street gang members. This study clearly shows that conflict between groups can trigger prejudice attitudes and discriminatory behavior. This experiment confirmed Sherif's realistic conflict theory.

Situations were also devised whereby one group gained at the expense of the other. For example, one group was delayed getting to a picnic and when they arrived the other group had eaten their food.

At first, this prejudice was only verbally expressed, such as taunting or name-calling. As the competition wore on, this expression took a more direct route. The Eagles burned the Rattler's flag.

Group Conflict

PHASE 3

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 Robbers Cave experiments showed that superordinate goals (goals so large that it requires more than one group to achieve the goal) reduced conflict significantly more effectively than other strategies (e.g., communication, contact).

A number of improvised reconciliatory opportunities (such as a bean-collecting contest, or the showing of a film, or the shooting of Firecrackers to celebrate the fourth of July) did not lead to any appreciable lessening of tensions between the Eagles and the Rattlers.

Sherif et al. concluded that such contrived contact opportunities were not going to lessen tensions between the groups. They now arranged for the introduction of a number of scenarios presenting superordinate goals which could not be easily ignored by members of the two antagonistic groups, but the attainment of which was beyond the resources and efforts of one group alone.

Conflict Resolution

Phase 3: Conflict Resolution (6-7 Days)

THE DRINKING PROBLEMThe first superordinate goal to be introduced concerned a common resource used by both groups. Their water supply, which had suddenly stopped flowing. All of the drinking water in the camp came from a reservoir on the mountain north of the camp. The water supply had failed and the Camp staff blamed this on "vandals."

• Upon investigations of the extensive water lines by the Eagles and the Rattlers as separate groups, they discovered that an outlet faucet had a sack stuffed into it. Almost all the boys gathered around the faucet to try to clear it

• When the water finally came on there was common rejoicing. The Rattlers did not object to having the Eagles get ahead of them when they all got a drink, as the Eagles did not have canteens with them and were thirstier. No protests or "Ladies first" type of remarks were made!

• Suggestions from members of both groups concerning effective ways to unblock the obstruction were thrown in from all sides simultaneously which led to cooperative efforts clearing the obstacle itself. The joint work on the faucet lasted over 45 minutes.

Conflict Resolution

Phase 3: Conflict Resolution (6-7 Days)

• Other problem-solving superordinate goals introduced in this phase included the joint use of a tug-of-war-rope, and both groups of boys 'accidentally' coming across a stuck-in-a-rut truck that was carrying food for both groups.

• In the event the joint pursuit of such superordinate goals saw a lessening of intergroup conflict. At breakfast and lunch on the last day of camp, the seating arrangements were considerably mixed up insofar as group membership was concerned.

Conflict Resolution

OUTCOMES

• 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.

REALISTIC CONFLICT THEORY

The Robbers Cave experiment has often been used to illustrate the Realistic Conflict Theory or Realistic Group Conflict Theory — the idea that group conflict can result from competition over resources, tangible or intangible.

However, the 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 dividing themselves into an ingroup and an outgroup or ‘social categorisation’

REALISTIC CONFLICT THEORY

SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY

• 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.

Psychologists Michael Platow and John Hunter connect the study to social psychology’s ‘Social Identity Theory’—being part of a group has powerful effects on people’s identities and behaviors.

social identity THEORY

CONTACT HYPOTHESIS

• 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. .

The Robbers Cave experiment also allows us to evaluate social psychology’s ‘Contact Hypothesis’, according to which, 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.

CONTACT HYPOTHESIS

cRITICAL EVALUATION

• For example, in times of high unemployment there may be high levels of racism among white people who believe that black people (or asylum seekers) have taken their jobs. The study was a field experiment which means it has high ecological validity.
• However, the Robbers Cave study has been criticized on a number of issues. For example, the two groups of boys in the study were artificial, as was the competition, and did not necessarily reflect real life. For example, middle class boys randomly assigned into two separate groups is not rival inner city gangs, or rival football supporters.
• Ethical issues must also be considered. The participants were deceived, as they did not know the true aim of the study. Also, participants were not protected from physical and psychological harm.
• Nor should the results be generalized to real life because the research used only 12 year old white middle class boys and excluded, for example, girls and adults.

CRITICAL EVALUATION

The events at Robbers Cave mimicked the kinds of conflict that plague people all over the world. The simplest explanation for this conflict is competition. Assign strangers to groups, throw the groups into competition, stir the pot, and soon there is conflict. There is a lot of evidence that when people compete for scarce resources (e.g. jobs, land etc.) there is a rise in hostility between groups.

CRITICAL EVALUATION

JUMP IN HERE FOR MORE CLEAR EXPLANATION

REFERENCES

simple Psychology

https://www.simplypsychology.org/robbers-cave.html

ThoughtCo.

https://www.thoughtco.com/robbers-cave-experiment-4774987

REFERENCES

Thank you

Any question?