The Robbers Cave Experiment. Muzafer Sherif

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СКАЧАТЬ name calling, and even fights between the groups developed, indicating that ingroup democracy need not lead to democratic relations with outsiders when intergroup relations are fraught with conditions conducive to tension. The resistance that developed to postexperimental efforts at breaking down the ingroups and encouraging friendly interaction indicates the unmistakable effect of group products on individual members. Thus the results substantiated the second hypothesis, concerning determination of norms toward outgroups by the nature of relations between groups, and demonstrated some effects of intergroup relations upon ingroup functioning.

      One of the main methodological considerations of this experiment was that subjects be kept unaware that they were participating in an experiment on group relations. The view that subjects cease to be mindful that their words and deeds are being recorded is not in harmony with what we have learned about the structuring of experience. The presence of a personage ever observing, ever recording our words and deeds in a situation in which our status and role concerns are at stake, cannot help but intrude as an important factor in the total frame of reference. Therefore, in our work, the aim is to establish definite trends as they develop in natural, lifelike situations and to introduce precision at choice points when this can be done without sacrificing the lifelike character that gives greatest hope for the validity of these trends.

      The study just summarized illustrates the testing of hypotheses derived from sociological findings in experimentally designed situations. The next point relates to psychological findings, generalizations, and laboratory techniques relevant for the study of experience and behavior of individual group members. Here our task is to achieve a more refined analysis, on a psychological level through precise perceptual and judgmental indices, of individual behavior in the group setting. If such data are in line with findings concerning group relations on the sociological level, then we shall be moving toward integration of psychological and sociological approaches in the study of group relations.

      Here we can state only the bare essentials of the psychological principles, from a major trend in experimental psychology, that have been used in designing the experiments to be reported.⁵

      Judgments and perceptions are not merely intellectual and discrete psychological events. All judgments and perceptions take place within their appropriate frame of reference. They are jointly determined by functionally related internal and external factors operating at a given time. These interrelated factors—external and internal—constitute the frame of reference of the ensuing reaction. Observed behavior can be adequately understood and evaluated only when studied within its appropriate frame of reference or system of relations. The external factors are stimulus situations outside of the individual (objects, persons, groups, events, etc.). The internal factors are motives, attitudes, emotions, general state of the organism, effects of past experience, and so on. The boundary between the two is the skin of the individual—the skin being on the side of the organism.

      It is possible, therefore, to set up situations in which the appraisal or evaluation of a social situation will be reflected in the judgments and perceptions of the individual. In short, under appropriate and relevant conditions, the way the individual sizes up a situation in terms of the whole person he or she is at the time can be tapped through apparently simple perceptual and judgmental reactions.

      An additional principle should be clearly stated because of certain conceptions in psychology which imply that perception is almost an altogether arbitrary, subjective affair. If external stimulus situations are well structured in definite objects, forms, persons, and groupings, perception will, on the whole, correspond closely to the stimulus structure. This is not to say that functionally related internal factors do not play a part in the perception of structured situations. That some well-structured situations are singled out by the individual as “figure” rather than others indicates that they do. Such facts are referred to under the concept of perceptual selectivity.

      If, on the other hand, the external field is vague, unstructured—in short, allows for alternatives—to that extent the relative weight of internal factors (motives, attitudes) and social factors (suggestion, etc.) will increase. It is for this reason that the exhortations of the demagogue are relatively more effective in situations and circumstances of uncertainty. Since perceptions and judgments are jointly determined by external and internal factors, it is possible to vary the relative weights of these factors in differing combinations, giving rise to corresponding judgmental and perceptual variations. This has been done in various experiments. In a study carried out as part of our research program at the University of Oklahoma, James Thrasher varied the stimulus structure and the nature of interpersonal relations of subjects (strangers and friends) to determine the reciprocal effects of these variations on judgmental reactions. It was found that as the stimulus situation becomes more unstructured, the correspondence between stimulus values and judgment values decreases and the influence of social factors (established friendship ties in this case) increases (Thrasher 1954).

      Following the implications of these observations, it is plausible to say that behavior revealing discriminations, perceptions, and evaluations of individuals participating in the interaction process as group members will be determined not only by whatever motivational components and unique personality characteristics each member brings in, nor solely by the properties of external stimulus conditions (social or otherwise). Rather, it will arise as influenced, modified, and even transformed by these features and by the special properties of the interaction process, in which a developing or established state of reciprocities plays no small part. Interaction processes are not voids.

      The starting point in our program of research was the experimental production of group norms and their effects on perception and judgment (Sherif 1936). This stems from our concern for experimental verification of one essential feature of any group—a set of norms (feature 4 in the list of small group features above). Groups are not transitory affairs. Regulation of behavior in them is not determined by the immediate social atmosphere alone.

      Especially suggestive in the formulation of the problem was F. Thrasher’s observation on small groups that behavior of individual members is regulated in a binding way (both through inner attachment and, in cases of deviation, through correctives applied) by a code or set of norms. Equally provocative in this formulation was Emile Durkheim’s Elementary Forms of Religion, which pointed strongly to the rise of representations collectives in interaction situations and their effect in regulating the experience and outlook of the individual.

      After thus delineating the problem, the next step was to devise an experimental situation that lacked objective anchorages or standards (i.e., was vague or unstructured) in order to maximize the effects of the social interaction process. When individuals face such an unstructured stimulus situation they vary markedly in their reactions. However, such marked individual variations will not be found if the stimulus is a definite, structured object like a circle or a human hand. Individuals will agree, on the whole, when they face a circle or a normal hand even if they are 5,000 miles apart and members of different cultures. The fact of objective determination of perception and judgment and the ineffectiveness of social influences (suggestion, etc.) in relation to structured stimuli were clearly noted, in several contexts, in the original report of this experiment. A later publication, in order to stress cases of objective determination of psychological processes, devoted a chapter to the effects of technology and its decisive weight in determining social norms and practices, with numerous illustrations from various parts of the world. Among them, our study conducted in the early 1940s of five Turkish villages with varying degrees of exposure to modern technology dealt specifically with the compelling effects of such differential exposure on judgmental, perceptual, and other psychological processes.⁶

      The experimental situation chosen for the study of norm formation was the autokinetic situation (the apparent movement of a point of light in a lightproof room lacking visible anchorages). The dimension chosen was the extent of movement. As this study is reported in detail in various places, we shall give only the bare essentials.

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