robbers cave experiment unethical

The Robbers Cave Experiment, conducted by Muzafer Sherif in the 1950s, studied intergroup conflict and cooperation among 22 boys in Oklahoma. Initially separated into two groups, they developed group identities. Introducing competitive tasks led to hostility between groups.

7. Robbers Cave Experiment. Muzafer Sherif conducted the Robbers Cave Experiment in the summer of 1954, testing group dynamics in the face of conflict.

While the Robbers Cave Experiment yielded valuable insights, it also raised ethical concerns about the use of deception and the potential psychological impact on participants. The boys were unaware that they were part of an experiment, and the induced conflict could have caused emotional distress.

In this article, learn more about what happened in the Robbers Cave Experiment and the conclusions that Sherif made about what these findings meant with regard to intergroup conflicts. Also, explore some of the criticisms of the study and the impact the research had on the field of social psychology.

In fact, the Robbers Cave Experiment has become one of the most well-known experiments due to its questionable ethics. The purpose of an experiment is to test out a hypothesis. If you cannot support your hypothesis with your experiment, the problem is with the hypothesis - not the experiment.

This was the Robbers Cave experiment, and its startling outcome would inspire the harrowing book Lord of the Flies just a year later. Nearly six decades since, experts dub the experiment unethical as it appears to have left lasting mental damage on its subjects.

The Robbers Cave experiment studied how hostilities quickly developed between two groups of boys at a summer camp. The researchers were later able to reduce the tensions between the two groups by having them work towards shared goals.

The Robber’s Cave study is on a par with Stanley Milgrim’s ‘Obedience Experiments’ and Philip Zimbardo’s infamous prison study at Stanford University (Craig Haney, Curtis Bank & Philip Zimbardo, 1973), both for its sheer audaciousness and what it tells us about situational pressures to produce normative influence.

In the early 1950s, the social psychologist Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues conducted a now-classic experiment, on intergroup conflict and resolution of conflict, with 11- and 12-year-old boys...

The Sherifs made several conclusions based on the three-stage Robbers Cave experiment. [3][8] From the study, they determined that because the groups were created to be approximately equal, individual differences are not necessary or responsible for intergroup conflict to occur. [8]