1. Sherif et al. (1961) The Robbers’ Cave Study By Maddy and Michelle

2. The Hypotheses Tested Were… 1.When individuals having no established relationships are brought together to interact in group activities with common goals, they produce a group structure with hierarchical statuses and roles within it. 2.If two in-groups thus formed are brought into functional relationship under conditions of competition and group frustration, attitudes and appropriate hostile actions in relation to the out- group and its members will arise and will be standardized and shared in varying degrees by group members.

3. What Happened… The field experiment involved two groups of twelve-year-old boys at Robber’s Cave State Park, Oklahoma, America The 22 boys in the study were all from white middle-class backgrounds and all shared a Protestant, two-parent background None of the boys knew each other The boys were randomly assigned to one of two groups, however did not know about the other group.

4. What Happened… The boys developed an attachment to their groups throughout the first week of the camp, quickly establishing their own cultures and group norms, by doing various activities together like hiking, swimming, etc. The boys chose names for their groups, The Eagles and The Rattlers, and stencilled them onto shirts and flags

5. The Competition Stage… A series of competitive activities (e.g. baseball, tug-of-war etc.) were arranged with a trophy as a reward This phase was intended to bring the two groups into competition with each other in conditions that would create frustration between them Rattlers made threatening remarks about what they would do if anybody from The Eagles bothered the flag they had put on the pitch marking it as theirs

6. The Competition Stage… Situations were also devised whereby one group gained at the expense of the other e.g. eating the other groups picnic Started as verbal name calling etc. The groups became so aggressive with each other, (e.g. burning the others flags and stealing) that the researchers had to physically separate them During the subsequent two-day cooling off period, the boys listed features of the two groups – good for themselves, bad for the others

7. Evaluation… Were the aggressive displays a result of social factors or relative deprivation? Caused by an innate hostility towards other groups for survival reasons? Nature-nurture All boys + from certain backgrounds – cannot be generalised