Robbers Cave Experiment is a psychological experiment on social groups carried out in 1954 by Muzafer Sherif [Error: Wrong macro arguments: "4402" for macro 'ref' (maybe wrong macro tag syntax?)]
. 20 adolescent boys were driven to a state park, divided into 2 groups, and observed by scientist for three weeks. In addition to merely observing group dynamics, the experimenters started manipulating the groups:
- They stimulated mutual resentments by team sport competitions, and observed hatred and retaliation to evolve.
- They stimulated mutual help by presenting challenges that only both group together can solve, and observed cooperation and understanding to evolve
Fine writes in a book review that was published 2004 [Error: Wrong macro arguments: "4400" for macro 'ref' (maybe wrong macro tag syntax?)]
:
| " | ... the idea of the group has decayed since its prominence in the heyday of group dynamics research during the 1950s. | " |
From the fauceir analysis point of view two questions arise:
- Why did group psychology almost vanished from psychological science.
- Why it appeared in the 1950s?
The latter can be probably answered easily. After world war two and especially after the holocaust, people looked for answers why a society so sophisticated as Germany developed into such a monster.
If so the answer of the first question may be that group psychology provided some answers which were both not sufficient and startling. The scientific community, in a way that also can be readily explained by social identity and group dynamics, decided to abandon this subject. They probably feared consequences:
- to provide even better tools to manipulate social groups into monsters.
- to detect ones own incapabilities and insufficiencies to judge rationally
- to get grants cut for challenging dominating ideologies
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