 11 white, 11-year-old boys were sent to a special remote summer camp in Oklahoma, Robbers Caves 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 will be living together on this scout camp site, but first they must all get to know each other and pick a group name. 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 11-12-year-old boys across the park and they had given themselves the name the Rattlers. Neither group is aware of one another and they are also unaware that in just a few days time they will be competing against each other in a number of standard summer camp activities. What the children also don't know is that their camp counsellors are actually researchers into a psychology experiment into group 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 would 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 Muzava Sherif on the 29th of July 1906. Sherif in the first 20 years of his life would see a tumultuous time for his home country. He grew up in Odomis, located 113km south of the city of Izmir, in roughly the western modern day Turkey. Izmir would see occupation during the Turkish War for Independence which ran between 1918 and 1923. Sherif would go on to college during this period, graduating in 1926 with a Bachelor of Arts from Izmir International College. His education would continue with him earning an MA from Istanbul University in 1928. After discovering the works of William McDougal, he looked into the theory of instinct and social psychology. At a surprise to probably no one, McDougal was also into eugenics. It does seem like everyone was into this theory in the early 20th century. Anyway, I digress. Sherif would enroll at Harvard in the late 1920s gaining an MA. He would re-enroll in 1933 after a visit to Germany, although he would change to Columbia for his doctorate earning his PhD in 1935. Upon returning to Turkey, Sherif was offered a position teaching at Ankara 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, Sherif 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 sided 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 Sherif decided to leave Turkey and return to the USA after being detained, in fear of a harsher punishment for his political activities as the country looked further to the West in its political alignment. Sherif, a graduate from two US universities, found his Marxist 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 loomed and the rise of McCarthyism. By the beginning of the 1950s, Sherif's social, political and professional ties to Turkey fell apart during the anti-communist movement. To add further insult to injury, Ankara University officially fired him, citing his marriage to a US citizen. Oh yes, I nearly forgot to talk about Caroline, his wife. The couple met in 1945 when Caroline, who at the time was a research assistant at Princeton University, under Mr. Sherif. 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 Sherif's 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 organisation or society whose members share the same interests, language, etc. and try to keep other people out. The Sherif sought to artificially create ingroups 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. Sherif would, for the experiment, disguise himself as Mr. Muzay, the camp caretaker, as a way for him to observe the behaviour 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 2 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, Sherif noted that friendships were bonding within the individual groups and a hierarchical 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 will discuss that later on. Now with the two groups, stage 3 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. Sherif 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 Sherif sought out to expand upon the subject of ingroups. This brings us on to the 1953 Sherif's next experiment into ingroup behavior. The study would follow the same lines as the 1949 experiment but would employ greater laboratory controls. We would only get to stage 2 before being terminated early. Sherif would later say in his 1961 Robbers 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 would remain in grant money burning a whole in Sherif's pocket. This finally brings us on to the Robbers Cave study of 1954. The rerun was planned to take place beginning in June for 3 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 has settled on Oklahoma. Sherif 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 5th 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 5 or 6 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 principals. That the Sherif 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 during the three 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 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 three stage form. Sherif 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 in group bond within the participants. Games and treasure hunts were planned during stage one to help build friendships and in group 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 war 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 groups living areas which were used to record conversations to observe the camaraderie 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 Mocaysian Creek where they could swim, play and explore among the nearby woods. Each group had junior camp counselors who were university students. They would stay with the boys all the time and there were also senior camp counselors who were participant observers who stayed with the boys for around 12 hours a day. Cherif had instructed these assistants 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 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, mill 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 R 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 in 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 experiment has 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, albeit mainly from 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're on our field. This showed that the in and out 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 groups separately. These discussions informed the children of the tournament'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 to be really excited for the competition and showed aggressive language about the other group. They appropriated the ball ground as theirs and planted a Rattler flag and made aggressive remarks about any would-be 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. But a 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 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 behaviour. 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 accrue points to the winning team and the team with the largest number of commonsive 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, tent pitching and baseball on the third day and finally a tug of war and tent pitching on the fourth. The separately completed activities were cabin inspections on the second day as well as skits and songs. Day three had another cabin inspection and day four had another cabin inspection and a treasure hunt. The second group of activities allowed the 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 heckling. During mealtimes insults were thrown at each other and intergroup relations further fell apart. After the first tug of war the defeated Eagles took the Rattlers flag from the baseball pitch and set it alight. The next day the Rattlers were sent for breakfast first in order for them to see the child remains of their flag. In retaliation a punch up between the two groups ensued and in the scuffle a member of the Rattlers 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 fuelled with anger from the flag burning the Rattlers set about planning a raid of their adversaries camp. In the night around 10.30pm the Rattlers group hit the Eagles cabin turning beds and ripping window screens, stealing comic books and even clothing. The next day during lunch the Eagles hit the Rattlers 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 favour 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 wind shouting and jumping juxtaposed 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 grated on a defeated 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 won. 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 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 to one another would increase positive feelings between the two. Sharif tried group meals and watching movies in the recreation hall. During the scenarios the staff would leave the groups. During the initial contact 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 lunch time unsurprisingly both groups had chosen seats with one another and again it devolved into insults and even a food fight. In order to bring the groups together Sharif decided that stage three would include introducing a common goal. The experimenters engineered a full 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 the 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 were 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 had separated off into mingling. 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 $3.50 and the staff paid the rest. Although $3.50 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 3 a camp out was planned at Cedar 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 a 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 experiment is 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 travelled back home on the same bus. Although a couple of dissenting opinions were voiced the majority seemed to look forward to the proposition of all travelling together. Even on the journey home and a stop for refreshments the rattlers agreed that 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 in group stability increased when put into competitive situations with an out group and out group 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 Sharif found that intergroup friendships were around 93% but by the end of the third stage this had dropped to around 75% meaning that boundaries had been blurred by the use of superordinate goals. The study has been used as a practical example of realistic conflict theory where intergroup 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 the stands 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 criticised. 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 of poor behaviour 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 rallied against the experimenters thus scuppering sheriff's theory. In the robbers 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 the tension between the groups. Even one of the groups 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 staff wouldn't intervene and stop the bad behaviour? Furthermore it could be normal for boys who started out as enemies to end up as friends after three weeks regardless of the superordinate goals set out by the experimenters leading to sheriff 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 sheriff's 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 robbers 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 attribution share alike licensed. Plain difficult videos are produced by me John in the currently windy and wet south eastern 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 and 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 watching.