The Dark Side of Science: The Robbers Cave Experiment 1954 (Short Documentary)

11 white 11-year-old boys were sent to a special remote summer camp in Oklahoma robers cave State Park in the summer of 1954 each child is unknown to one another but they all have a few common background traits their ethnicity religion and two parent upbringing they have been told that they'll be living together on this scout camp site but first they must all get to know each other and pick a group Nam to solidify the bond between the boys a number of regular summer camp activities are undertaken such as swimming hiking and playing games the boys pick the name the Eagles and stencil this onto White Flags what the children didn't know was that an almost identical story was playing out with another group of 11 to 12 year- old boys across the park and they had given themselves the name for Rattlers neither group is aware of one another and they are also unaware that in just a few days time they'll be competing against each other in a number of standard summer camp activities what the children also don't know is that their Camp counselors are actually researchers into a psychology experiment into Intergroup conflict and the researchers had created these groups by randomly selecting and balancing attributes of the 22 boys the result of the study would reveal the tribal mentality which has allowed us to thrive as a species but also has been responsible for some true historical Horrors even though both groups shared so many background similarities the experiment will be described as the real life Lord of the Flies welcome to the dark side of science our story starts not in the USA but in the Ottoman Empire with the birth of muava Sherif on the 29th of July 1906 shareif in the first 20 years of his life would see a tumultuous time for his home country he grew up in admus located 113 kilm South of the city of ismir in roughly the west of modernday turkey ismir would see occupation during the Turkish Warfare in dependence which ran between 1918 and 1923 shareif would go on to college during this period graduating in 1926 with a Bachelor of Arts from ismir International College his education would continue with him earning an MA from Istanbul University in 1928 after discovering the works of William McDougle he looked into the theory of instinct and social psychology as a surprise surprised to probably no one McDougall was also into Eugenics it does seem like everyone was into this FY in the early 20th century anyway I digress Sherif would enroll at Harvard in the late 1920s gaining an MA he would reenroll in 1933 after a visit to Germany although he would change to Colombia for his Doctorate earning his PhD in 1935 Upon returning to Turkey shareif was offered a position teaching at anchor University during his time at the University he was very open about his anti-fascist views at a time with Germany falling under the spell of Nazism shareif was highly critical of Hitler and became a communist ideological supporter this would get him into trouble in the mid 1940s when in 1944 he was detained with a number of Turkish Communist party members turkey during World War II was a neutral power for the most part until it decided with the Allies in February 1945 but the country was fearful of a Soviet invasion and sought to secure itself with the capitalist Western allies this was around the same time that shareif decided to leave turkey and returned to the USA after being detained in fear of a harsher punishment for his political activities as a country looked further to the West in its political alignment shareif a graduate from two US universities found his Marx views in the late 1940s a benefit to his career as the social academic environment at the time was far more left leaning this led to his book the psychology of ego involvements 1947 published from Princeton University but being left leaning wasn't to be a benefit for too much longer as the dark shadow of the Cold War Loom and the rise of McCarthyism by the beginning of the 1950s sharif's social political and professional ties to Turkey fell apart Juni anti-communist movement to add further insult to injury anchor University officially fired him citing his marriage to a US citizen oh yes I nearly forgot to talk about Carolyn his wife the couple met in 1945 when Carolyn who at the time was a research assistant at Princeton University under Mr shareif she had gained a master's degree in 1944 while studying under Wendell Johnson of Monster study Fame their professional relationship developed into a personal then romantic culminating in their marriage in December 1945 the two were gone to produce multiple works in the psychology and social psychological Fields okay well that's a little bit of a background to the experimenters let's look at the experiment itself starting in 1945 the sheriffs began to look at the field of social ingroup let me dust off my dictionary for a second for the official definition an ingroup is a small group of people in an organization or Society whose members share the same interests language Etc and try to keep other people out the Sheri sought to artificially create in groups amongst young boys to see if they could turn these groups against one another to study the Intergroup conflict the first experiment would take place in the summer of 1949 with 24 white 12-year-old boys from lower middle class Protestant backgrounds at an isolated camp in Middle Grove it will be funded by Yale University and the department for scientific research of the American Jewish Community the reason for all the children having the same background was to eliminate differences apart from personality between the boys shareif would for the experiment disguise himself as Mr Muse the camp caretaker as a way for him to observe the behavior of his subjects the experiment would be formed of three stages the first consisted of all the boys taking part in activities amongst each other and were allowed to form friendships after a while the 24 boys were divided into two groups the experimenters deliberately separated the budding friendships in their selection of each cohort of 12 children from then on stage two commenced where each group would only be allowed to interact within each other this was to try and establish an ingroup mentality the team buildings were conducted where a common goal appealed to all in the group by the end of this stage Sharie noted that friendships were bonding within the individual groups and a hercal structure had formed they found that the boys preferred interacting with their own ingroup over the other although this seems like a clean-cut hypothesis confirmation it wasn't so perfect but we'll discuss that later on now what the two groups stage three would involve adversarial competition it was observed that the two groups would act hostile to one another and although acting democratically internally in their 12 strong teams the boys didn't conduct themselves accordingly with the out group shareif tried to restore Harmony at the end of the study by giving the boys a common enemy to unite against they did this by beating a softball team from outside the camp although tensions still existed between the two groups with these promising results the Sheri sought out to expand upon the subject of in groups this brings us on to the 1953 Sheriff's next experiment into in group Behavior the study would follow the same lines as a 1949 experiment but would employ greater laboratory controls we would only get to stage two before being terminated early shareif would later say in his 1961 Robert's cave book on the reason for the failed experiment owing to various difficulties and unfavorable conditions including errors of judgment in the direction of the experiment but sherif's seemingly dismissive comment on the study actually glosses over the real reason but that will be revealed later on this meant that a rerun was in order and with the remaining grant money burning a hole in sher's pocket this finally brings us on to the Rober cave study of 1954 the rerun was planned to take place beginning in June for free weeks of the summer of 1954 the experiment would have 22 boys all from similar backgrounds but vitally not to have ever had any previous interactions with one another but where to get so many children it's not like you can just go take a class from a school as there would be prejudices in groups microcultures and already inevitable rivalries all of this could muddy a potential experiment in order to find a group large enough a city had to be selected to find the pool of subjects the experiment is settled on Oklahoma shareif decided that a maximum of one boy per school could be selected researchers were dispatched throughout the city to its many schools and armed with higher education credentials and a letter managed to gain permission from the principals to go into the schoolyard to observe fifth grader boys playing these credentials also gained access for the researchers to the Children's School records this compared to the modern world of stranger danger really blows my mind older 1950s where a degree and a letter will get you in anywhere in total around 200 children were selected this would require a little more selection down to around 50 anyway to cut a long story short around five or six children per School were selected rated top to bottom in preference and their parents were contacted in the same order the parents were given the same explanation of the study as the principles that the shareif team was looking to study the interaction of group activities within teams and how they would act during sporting activities and their attitudes towards winning or losing the parents were explicitly told that visiting their child dur the 3 weeks was prohibited and the camp would cost $25 which apparently on the inflation calculator is around $261 in 2022 money eventually the 22 participants were selected and and thus the experiment could begin the overall concept of the experiment would be copied from the 1949 and failed 1953 studies but would take a fre stage form Sheriff named the first stage in group formation this would take the space of a week where two groups were kept separate and team building exercises were undertaken to form an ingroup Bond within the participants games and treasure hunts were planned during stage one to help build friendship and ingroup alliances stage two would be the conflict or friction phase this would involve a tournament between the two groups consisting of sports like baseball tug-of warar and a scavenger hunt but also experimental tests like Bean counting competitions a trophy was promised for the winners of the competition as well as prizes like knives and medals over 1950s where pre teens were given weapons the third and final stage was the integration phase where the two groups would be brought together to undertake group tasks and leisure activities of watching films to record their findings hidden microphones were used throughout the two group's living areas which were used to record conversations to observe the comaraderie within the group the groups were also given questionnaires to fill out about their group and later about the outer group on the 19th of June 1954 a coach of 11 children arrived at the robbers cave State Park in Oklahoma a day later another group of 11 would also arrive at the camp both groups were unaware of the other and throughout stage one the experimenters would keep this the case by carefully managing the two's activities throughout the park the boys would stay in log cabins alongside the Ming Creek where they could swim play and explore among the nearby Woods each group group had Junior Camp counselors who were University students B would stay with the boys all the time and there were also senior Camp counselors who were participant observers who stable with the boys for around 12 hours a day shareif had instructed these assistant strictly to not influence the study in any way although there were two groups their experience in the first few days was very similar after the 19th of June the first stage would begin this began even on the coach ride to the camp where boys in their separate coaches discussed parents and parts of the City of Oklahoma where they had come from games were played and the groups were encouraged to create team names make flags and create a motto one group took the name the Eagles where the other took the name the Rattlers over the next few days the groups were allowed to create hideouts and using a canoe placed near each respective campsite created their respective holdouts in order to keep both groups separate meal times and activities were staggered the groups were allowed to purchase t-shirts and baseball caps for stenciling their respective group names on as well as white sheets to be turned into Flags the type of language within the group addressed items as are things and a noticeable microculture was developing within the boys towards the end of the week the two groups were allowed to find each other and once completely confirmed by the camp workers that there was indeed another group both groups became eager to see one another but a slight spanner was thrown into the works two boys in the eagle group had to be sent home due to homesickness this would give an organic path to stage two the friction stage the experimenters found that both groups became insistent on challenging one another to a baseball game allowing the subjects to believe that the tournament of stage two was going to be their idea the continued insistence of the groups will be it mainly and the Rattlers meant setting up the control circumstances for stage two became increasingly difficult the Rattlers upon hearing the other group was playing on the baseball field began to use language like they're using our diamond or they on our field this showed that the in andout group dynamics had successfully formed at least in the Rattlers and thus the experiment moved into stage two or the friction phase the first day of the friction phase consisted of an informal discussion between the experimenters posing as staff and the two group separately these discussions informed the children of the tolman's possible prizes and assured them that every effort was being made to set everything up for the two groups to face off crucially during the first day of stage two both groups had no physical or visual contact with one another the different groups had different reactions to the informal announcements the Rattlers seemed seemed to be really excited for the competition and showed aggressive language about the other group they appropriated the ballground as theirs and planted a ratler flag and made aggressive remarks about any wouldbe flag removers the Eagles on the other hand were far less enthusiastic with only a couple of the boys sounding particularly eager to face off for the remainder of the day the two groups prepared and practiced the Eagles were showing as the day progressed a greater group Pride when the flag was attached to to a pole on the second day the two groups would have their first Close Quarters contact almost immediately this broke out into name calling and aggressive behavior the two groups had breakfast at different times where they were introduced to the tournament exhibit which took the form of a trophy bladed knives and medals after breakfast the tournament was officially announced the groups were informed that each game would ACR points to the winning team and a team with the largest number of culminative points would win the whole tournament there was a mix of competitive activities as well as activities to be completed separately by the groups which would be judged by the staff the games were to consist of baseball and tug-of War on the first day and second day of the competition touch football T pitching and baseball on the third day and finally a tug of war and T pitching on the fourth the separately completed activities were cabin inspections on the second day as well as skits and songs dayre had another cabin inspection and day four had another cabin inspection at a treasure hunt the second group of activities allowed experimenters to even out the score to keep the teams neck and neck for longer thus increasing the friction between the groups straight off the bat don't excuse the pun the Rattlers won the baseball game and the tug of war this was evened out by the experimenters during the cabin inspections after the first two days of the tournament the cheers for the losers and good sportsmanship went out of the window degenerating into heping during me times insults were thrown at each other and Intergroup relations further fell apart after the first HG of war the defeated Eagles took the Rattler flag from the baseball pitch and set it a light the next day the Rattlers were sent for breakfast first in order for them to see the Char remains of their flag in retaliation a punch up between the two groups ensued and in the scuffle a member of the Rat rers grabbed and burned the eagle flag the next tug of war on the second day resulted in a strong win for the Eagles frustrated in this and fueled with anger from the flag burning the Rattlers set about planning a raid of their adversaries camp in the night around 10:30 p.m. the Rattlers group hit the Eagle's cabin turning beds and ripping window screens stealing comic books and even clothing the next day during lunch the Eagles hit the Rattler's cabin doing the same amount of damage the Rattlers by now had also replaced their burnt flag with a stolen pair of trousers much to the annoyance of the Eagles the competitions continued and were manipulated in such a way that by the last day of the competitions it was neck and neck and pivoted on the final task the treasure hunt because the hunt was separate between the two groups again this result could be manipulated in the favor of the smaller Eagle group right at the end of The Hunt both teams were brought out in front of the trophy and prizes and the winners were the Eagles the Eagles did the hunt in 8 minutes and 38 seconds and the Rattlers did theirs in 10 minutes and 15 seconds the difference was night and day between the group's reactions the Eagles gleeful in the win shouting and jumping ju opposed to the Rattlers dejected sitting watching the winners celebrate the Eagles went off to the creek to swim and play in Victory this must have graded on a defeated group group and they planned to even the score the Rattlers again raided the Eagles camp and in doing so stole the knives and medals which had just been one upon finding out the Eagles squared off against the Rattlers and a fight looked like it was about to break out a couple of the boys scuffled but quickly this was broken up by the staff the Rattlers observers herded the group back up the path to their Camp a staff member returned some of the prizes to the Eagles but it was was clear that neither group wanted to have anything to do with the other and thus the experiment now moved into its final stage integration Sharif and his team had created two groups who had become Arch enemies this hatred was not from racial religious or cultural backgrounds but purely from being arbitrarily selected into a group by a third party initially it was thought that just exposure of the two groups one another would increase positive feelings between the two shareif tried group meals and watching movies in the recreation hall during the scenarios the staff would leave the groups during the initial contacts seating was freely available thus giving the opportunity for the groups to intermingle and before each meal or film the groups were made to wait near each other but almost all interactions devolved into arguments and insults during a lunchtime unsurprisingly both groups had chosen seats with one another and again it evolved into insults and even a food fight in order to bring the groups together shareif decided that stage three would include introducing a common goal the experimenters engineered a full with the water system this was done by turning off the tap from the Camp's water tank and covering over the area with two Boulders it was hoped that a perceived deprivation of water would bring both groups together they were told that vandals had done this before in order to absolve blame from either group or the staff and we're told that at least 25 people were needed to find the issue and fix it thus requiring at least both teams to cooperate after the combined effort of both groups fixed the water issue many of the boys went off to catch lizards play and carve wood whistles but interestingly the children weren't working within their groups but it separated off intermingling but the Intergroup friction continued to persist when the groups were separated for dinner leading to more insults and arguing another engineer cooperation task was securing the film Treasure Island the children were told that the camp couldn't afford the $15 for the film as most of the children wanted to see the film it was suggested that both groups could contribute some money after some initial hostilities of saying either group should pay the full amount eventually a mutually acceptable amount was agreed upon where both groups paid an equal sum of $350 and the staff paid the rest although the $350 was not individually equal as the eagles only had nine members the breakdown of Intergroup hostility showed some progress during the negotiations the boys intermingled again by playing and talking the next day the two groups agreed to take turns in going first for lunch and dinner towards the end of stage three a camp out was planned at Ceda Lake which would involve a truck ride including both groups once at the lake there was another engineered issue this time with the truck requiring all the boys to take part in the tug of war not against themselves but instead against the stricken vehicle after several attempts of pulling the vehicle the truck restarted and both groups erupted into jubilant celebration across group lines the next day a trip to Arkansas was announced this unlike before was seen as agreeable by both parties for the other to come along but a final dinner back at the robbers cave site the experimenters mixed around the seating from before as to encourage more intermingling both groups as they had done before lined up but interestingly after collecting their food all of the boys sat together across group boundaries during the evening's discussion the idea was posited that they all traveled back home on the same bus although a couple of dissenting opinions were voiced the majority seemed to look forward to the proposition of of all traveling together even on the journey home and a stop for Refreshments the Rattlers agreed at a $5 prize they had one be spent on drinks for everyone regardless of group it seemed as if sharif's hypothesis was correct in that he could create two groups from almost identical backgrounds to hate one another the experiment also showed that within the groups a hierarchy was formed with high and low status individuals all without the encouragement of the adults it was discovered that ingroup stability increased when put into competitive situations with an outg group and outgroup hostility also increased he also discovered that just exposing the two groups without competition during stage three didn't reduce hostility and as such group goals needed to be enacted to try and improve Intergroup relations the ultimate result was although Intergroup friction is increased when competition is included it can be reduced thus meaning in The Wider World Intergroup relations can be improved at the end of stage two Sharie found that Intergroup friendships were around 93% but by the end of the first stage this had dropped to around 75% meaning that boundaries have been blurred by the use of superordinate goals the study has been used as a practical example of realistic conflict theory where inte group hostility can arise as a result of competition over limited resources it doesn't matter however if it's real or perceived this theory has many extensions to explaining racism xenophobia and in general our human desire for tribalism or the exclusion of the other take football or soccer if you're American games for example people from essentially very similar backgrounds shout hatred and abuse to one another in a stance just because two teams are playing against one another on the pitch The Spectators probably have more in common with one another than the millionaire Sportsmen that they are cheering on but what of the criticism well there is a long list of both moral and scientific issues here morality the use of children who by Design were not aware of the experiment couldn't give informed consent and their parents and teachers as well were not given the full concept of what the boys were going to be involved in this however does play into Sheriff's stated reliability of the experiment's results but the scientific validity of the study has also been criticized this is due to the odd Vibes during the experiment where staff members did not exactly act like there were actually staff instead of breaking up fights they took photographs instead of telling off poor Behavior they took notes this was clearly not subtle as the reason for the 1953 study ending early was likely due to the fact the children kept on asking why there were microphones hanging in their camp and the ultimate discovery of a notebook with observations of the children written in the children instead of forming into two groups actually raded against the experimenters thus scuppering Sheriff's theory in the Robert cave experiment of 1954 the assertion of sheriff that the adults had no influence over the children is clearly wrong as stage two was manipulated to increase inre the tension between the groups even one of the group's names the Rattlers was influenced by the boys witnessing one of the adults shooting a snake the fact that the staff did not act like normal Camp workers could have played up the reaction of the boys to be more aggressive also there was no control group which also brings up issues of the experiment's result validity how can we know for certain if the groups would become hostile have food fights and Shout abuse at each other at a normal camp where St sta wouldn't intervene and stop the bad behavior furthermore it could be normal for boys who started out as enemies to end up as friends after 3 weeks regardless of the superordinate goals set out by the experimenters leading to shareif placing more weight on the results and attributing the children's actions to his realistic conflict theory the study would become a Cornerstone of realistic conflict theory and put the sheriffs into the Hall of Fame of experimental psychologists but multiple modern re-evaluations of the experiment have disputed this in Gina Perry's book The Lost Boys which during her research went through all the material from the experiment found that there was more backstage manipulation than originally thought the way the Robert cave experiment book is written glosses over the manipulation in its neutral language as Gina pointed out what is interesting however is how the 1953 study actually proved the better nature of the children in that they stayed friends and turned against the experimenters now where would you rate this experiment on my ethical scale I'm going to say around a seven due to the violence that broke out between the boys and the apparent lack of intervention as well as the lack of informed consent on the part of the subjects this video is a plain difficult production all videos on the channel are Creative Commons attribu and share like licensed plain f videos are produced by me John and they currently windy and wet Southeastern corner of London UK help the channel grow by liking commenting and subscribing check out my Twitter for all sorts of photos nods and sods as well as hints on future videos I've got patreon and YouTube membership as well so check them out if you fancy supporting the channel financially and all that's left to say is thank you for [Music] watching [Music]

Channel: Plainly Difficult

Views: 1,901,066

Keywords: Dark side of science, Robbers cave experiment, real life lord of the flies, Muzafer Sherif and Carolyn Wood Sherif, Donald and Gua experiment, Psychology, Science experiment, qxir, History documentary, science documentary

Id: FLmHfwkMAaU

Length: 30min 59sec (1859 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 02 2022