The Importance Of The Robber's Cave Experiment

The Robber’s Cave Experiment was conducted by a man named Muzafer Sherif. It was an experiment that Sherif introduced in order to help demonstrate his contribution called the realistic conflict theory. The realistic conflict theory is negative prejudice, stereotypes and all around conflict in a group when it comes to competition for desired resources. He believed that the strife between both groups occurred due to the competition for limited resources.
This experiment was conducted using two groups of eleven year old boys. The group of twenty-two boys were unaware of each other and came from a white middle-class background. All of them were protestant and had two parents. The boys were randomly assigned to two groups. Each of the group were unaware of the other group’s existence. Furthermore, after the two groups have been established they were picked up as individual groups and brought to

Robber’s Cave State Park in Oklahoma during the summer of 1954.
The first week (first stage) of the experiment, they separated the two parties in order to ensure that the two camps started to create bonds and relationships within the group. Each group fabricated a name for their camps, one was named The Rattlers while the other one was named The Eagles. Each group became slowly aware of the other groups existence and tried to the camp staff if they could arrange some sort of competition between the two camps.
The next stage took 4-6 days to take place and this phase introduced the two groups into competitions between them, Both the Eagles and the Rattlers would have competitions where there would be one winner and one loser. The winners would usually receive a medal or some sort of trophy. While the losers received no consolation prize. This created tension between the group’s and eventually led to the staff of the camps to physically separate the kids to avoid any further violence.
Furthermore, as the good sportsmanship deteriorated between the two groups, the final stage was designed in order to resolve the quarrel between them. Originally, they attempted by making them watch a movie together in order for both groups to reconcile. However, it failed thus having no effect between both parties, and they remained hostile towards one and another. This led to the experimenters to formulate a common problem for the two groups to come together and fix. The first issue the boys faced was a problem with their water supply, and the two groups would have to work together to get the water pumping through camp again. The boys were able to solve the problem after finding a clog in the pipe and clearing it out. After this the groups had to work together on other problems, and slowly but surely the two groups became great friends, and were able to eat together and ride the bus home together without any more trouble between the two
Importance of this study comes from the way the boys acted and responded to the different events and trials they were put through.

The boys first showed that when humans are put together with strangers to work towards a common goal they will form groups with roles in order to work together better and more efficiently. This was shown from the formation of the two groups The Eagles and The Rattlers. The boys then showed that when put into a competition with another group that tension and rivalry would be sewn between the competing groups. This was illustrated through the actions the groups made against each other like destroying each others flags. The groups then showed that when faced with a common issue they could come together and work towards fixing the problems at hand. The boys showed that this was possible when they worked towards the common goal of fixing the water supply. The significance of this experiment exhibits that the cooperation of a group functioning towards a shared goal can do so much into solving the conflict peacefully as to a dysfunctional

team.