Robbers Cave Experiment

The Study

For 3 weeks in 1954, Sherif and his colleagues at the University of Oklahoma selected a group of twenty boys, divided them in two groups (the Eagles and the Rattlers), bused them to a state park, and watched as group structures developed and as idiocultures, or group cultures, were created. Eventually the Eagles and the Rattlers entered into conflict, and then, through a set of experimental interventions, overcame their hostility by solving tasks together.

Sherif's contention, based on a series of elaborate research studies in the late 1940s and early 1950s, was that groups naturally develop status structures and group cultures, and then establish boundaries, providing for the opportunity of intergroup conflict, particularly where resources need to be shared. The question becomes—for theory and for policy—how to overcome this intergroup hostility. Sherif believed that the egocentric orientation of group members could be overcome through the involvement of members of rival groups in achieving superordinate goals: goals that neither group by itself had the resources to achieve. Although it might be an overstatement to suggest that such a claim had any direct bearing on entrenched intergroup prejudice, much less on international relations, the idea that groups sometimes require others for the desired ends is surely accurate and behaviors may alter as a consequence. Sherif's point is valid in its focus about how groups defined their boundaries and in its conclusion that this definition results from group goals and resources.

As much as for the substance of the findings, the Robbers Cave study is notable for its methodology. Muzafer Sherif (1906–1988) received his PhD in psychology at Columbia University and taught during his career in both psychology (University of Oklahoma) and sociology (Pennsylvania State University). During his academic life, he wrote and published two-dozen books. Sherif insisted that the understanding of the dynamics of group life was to be found not only in the laboratory.

Early in his career, Sherif became known for his research on what is labeled the autokinetic effect. This refers to a physiological process: When an individual views a point of light within a darkened room, that point of light appears to move, as a function of the natural and uncontrolled movement of the person's eyes. This, in itself, is not a sociological phenomenon. Sherif's concern was to explain the social construction of norms. By bringing groups of individuals into a darkened room and having them estimate publicly the movement of the light, Sherif discovered that individual groups created their own norms for movement—their own culture that affected how members perceived the world. Sherif found that when groups developed a consensus, the perceptions of group members were altered. The establishment of group norms had powerful effects on individuals.

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