The Robbers Cave Experiment. Muzafer Sherif
This suggestion was accepted as a good idea. Thus each boy took a turn at throwing a ball at a target 25 times, and all members judged his performance after each trial.
It should be noted that in previous studies, judgments of future performance were used as an index. The important methodological departure here was using as the unit of measurement the difference between actual performance and judgment of that performance after it was executed. To do so, the stimulus situation had to be made as unstructured as possible so that the developing status relations would be the weighty factor in determining the direction of judgmental variations.
In line with our hypothesis in this experimental unit, the results indicated that variations in judgment of performance on the task were significantly related to status ranks in both groups (Sherif, White, and Harvey 1955). The performance of high-status members was overestimated by other group members; the performance of low-status members tended to be underestimated. The extent of over- or underestimation related positively to the status rankings. Variations in judgment of performance on this task did not significantly correlate with skill, or actual scores, of members. This finding should not be interpreted to mean that skill can be discarded as a factor, or that it would not be highly related to judgmental variation in a more structured task. Of the two groups, skill seemed to be of relatively greater importance in the group that achieved less stability and solidarity. This result is one of several indications that the relationship between judgmental variation and status rankings is closer in the group with greater solidarity and greater structural stability. This finding of a relationship between the degree of structural stability, on the one hand, and the psychological response of members as revealed in their judgments, on the other, points to the necessity for systematic concern with the degree of group structure and solidarity as a variable in small group studies. In particular, it should be brought systematically into the study of leadership and problems of conformity (Sherif 1954).
Following the experimental assessment of psychological effects of group structure in existing and in experimentally formed ingroups, the next step in our program of research was to extend the use of judgmental-variation techniques to the level of intergroup relations among already existing groups. Such an experimental unit was completed by O. J. Harvey in 1954. Harvey investigated relations between existing informally organized groups and their effects on ingroup functioning and on evaluations of the ingroup and outgroup. Organized cliques were chosen on the same basis as those in the study, already summarized, of status relations in existing informally organized groups. In the first experimental session, ingroup members judged each other’s performance on a task. In the second session, two cliques with either positive or negative relationships with each other were brought to the situation together. Here a similar procedure was followed, with ingroup members judging performance both of other ingroup members and of members of the functionally related outgroup. In addition, subjects rated ingroup and outgroup members on ten adjectival descriptions presented on a graphic scale. These ratings were included to yield data relevant to our hypothesis in the 1949 study concerning the nature of group stereotypes and to the hypotheses of Avigdor’s study (1952) on the rise of stereotypes among members of cooperating and rival groups.
Results obtained in this experiment bear out the hypotheses. Greater solidarity was evidenced in the ingroup when negatively related outgroups were present, as revealed by an increasing relationship between judgmental variation and status ranks and by greater overestimation of performance by ingroup members. Ingroup performance was judged significantly above that of outgroup members when the groups were antagonistic, which was not the case when the groups present were positively related to each other. Finally, results clearly show a much higher frequency of favorable attributes for ingroup members (e.g., “extremely considerate,” “extremely cooperative”) and a much higher frequency of unfavorable attributes for members of an antagonistic outgroup (e.g., “extremely inconsiderate,” “extremely uncooperative”). The difference between qualities attributed to ingroup members and members of friendly outgroups is much smaller and not so clear-cut, as would be expected.
Thus we demonstrated the feasibility of experimental study, through laboratory-type techniques, of norm formation, of status relations within groups, and of positive and negative attitudes between groups, on the one hand, and on the other, of experimental production of ingroups themselves, as evidenced in two previous studies. Our next step would be to carry through the large-scale experiment along the lines of our 1953 attempt, pulling together all of these various aspects into one design. Judgmental indices reflecting developing ingroup and intergroup relations would be obtained through laboratory-type techniques at choice points in a way that would not clutter the flow of the interaction process. These judgmental indices could be checked against data obtained through more familiar observational, rating, and sociometric methods. If indications of the findings through judgmental processes were in line with the trends obtained by gross observational and other methods, then we could say the generalizations reached are valid. If this could be established, the laboratory-type experiment could be offered as a more precise and refined method of assessing the effects of interaction processes in group relations.
This approach considers the behavior of individuals as an outcome of interaction processes into which factors enter both from the individual, with his or her unique characteristics and capacities, and from properties of the situation. As an approach, it affords a naturalistic behavioral setting against which the claims of various personality tests can be evaluated.
This comprehensive experimental plan includes the following successive phases:
1. Experimental production of ingroups with a hierarchical structure and set of norms (intragroup relations). In line with our 1949 and 1953 studies, this is done not through discussion methods, but through the introduction of goals that arise in the situations, have common appeal value, and necessitate facing a common problem, leading to discussion, planning, and execution in a mutually cooperative way.
2. Bringing the two experimentally formed groups into functional relations in situations in which the groups find themselves in competition for given goals and in conditions that imply some frustration in their relation to one another (intergroup tension).
3. Introducing goals that cannot be easily ignored by members of the two antagonistic groups, but whose attainment is beyond the resources and efforts of one group alone. In short, superordinate goals are introduced with the aim of studying the reduction of intergroup tension to derive realistic leads for the integration of hostile groups.
This experimental plan was carried out during the summer of 1954 at Robbers Cave in Oklahoma. The remaining chapters of this book give an account of its planning, execution, and findings.
__________
1. “The human group is an organization of two or more individuals in a role structure adapted to the performance of a particular function. As thus defined the group is the unit of sociological analysis.” R. Freedman, A. H. Hawley, W. S. Landecker, H. M. Miner, Principles of Sociology (New York: Holt, 1952), 143, emphasis added.
2. This feature, long noted by sociologists, has received repeated laboratory confirmation by psychologists, as mentioned earlier.
3. It is not possible here to review sociological findings on which these features are based or to discuss them more fully. They have been elaborated in our Psychology of Ego-involvements (with H. Cantril) (New York: Wiley, 1947), Chapter 10; An Outline of Social Psychology (New York: Harper, 1948); and Groups in Harmony and Tension (with C. W. Sherif) (New York: Harper, 1953), Chapter 8.
4. See E. T. Hiller, Social Relations and Structure (New York: Harper, 1947); and Freedman, Hawley, Landecker, Miner, Principles of Sociology.
5. Fuller accounts of these principles from the works of psychologists and of their background can be found in Sherif, The Psychology of Social Norms (New York: Harper, 1936), and Outline of Social Psychology; Sherif and Sherif, Groups in Harmony and Tension, Chapter 6.
6. See M. Sherif, “Contact with Modern Technology in Five Turkish Villages,” in Outline of Social Psychology, Chapter 15, 374–385.
7. Study by C. W. Sherif summarized in Sherif, Outline of Social