Robbers Cave Experiment: Intergroup Conflict And Autonomy

Muzafer Sherif helped clarify the conditions that produce intergroup conflict and harmony. He conducted an experiment called the Robbers Cave Experiment and studied a group of eleven-year-old boys in an unlikely setting: a summer camp located at Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma. Sherif pretended to be camp counselors as well as staff and the researchers began their research. First, they assigned the boys into two different groups than the two groups arrived on separate buses and were in different areas of the camp. One group of the boys called themselves the Eagles and the other group assigned their name as the Rattlers. After a week of the two boys being separated and being assigned to different areas of the summer campsite, Sherif started to conduct his research and told the two group of boys to meet one another and compete in a series of competitive games.

First of all, when the groups did meet one another there was a lot of hostility towards one another and a quick rivalry developed throughout the group of boys. This demonstrated in which hostile groups can be created and how fast they can quickly develop even within a matter of seconds after meeting each other. This hostility led to the Eagles burning the Rattlers flag, and in retaliation,

Secretly, Sherif and the experimenters would go out and sabotage both groups water supply. This came to a problem for the Eagles and the Rattlers and they eventually decided to come together and work as a team to fix their water supply and with their teamwork they managed to fix it. After, a series of joint efforts the tension decreased and eventually the rivalry between them diminished and the group of boys even became friends in the