Question 1

What was the Robbers Cave Experiment?

Accepted Answer

It was a 1954 study by psychologist Muzafer Sherif in which twenty-two ordinary eleven-year-old boys at an Oklahoma summer camp were split into two groups and pushed into competition. It showed how quickly hostility forms between groups and how shared goals can reduce it.

Question 2

How did the Robbers Cave Experiment reduce conflict between the groups?

Accepted Answer

Simply bringing the groups together failed and worsened the fighting. Conflict only eased when the researchers created superordinate goals, tasks like fixing the water supply and freeing a stuck truck, that neither group could accomplish alone and that forced them to cooperate.

Question 3

Was the Robbers Cave Experiment ethical?

Accepted Answer

By modern standards, no. The boys were children who never gave informed consent, were deliberately deceived, and were provoked into fear and aggression. Studies like this helped drive the creation of ethics review boards and consent rules that would prohibit it today.

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The Summer They Manufactured a War