The Den of Robbers Experiment: Creating Conflict

We often wonder how there can be so many social conflicts. So many wars that have happened to humanity, so many ethnic or religious clashes, so many problems for coexistence or collaboration between people. The thieves' cave experiment is a way to clear all these doubts, with surprising results.

This type of study was devised in the middle of the 20th century, just at the end of the Second World War, at which time in which an infinity of psycho-social experiments emerged that gave answers to many unknowns derived from the conflict.

What is the den of thieves experiment?

The robbers' den experiment took place in the United States, near Oklahoma, and was designed to detect the prejudices and ideological burdens that individuals carry with them shoulders, often causing the most serious problems such as xenophobia, misogyny, and homophobia. Intolerance "of the other", in short. There is a kind of “them vs. us” mantra that we often think we don't relate to.

It was then two professors from the University of Oklahoma in the United States, Muzafer Sherif and Carolyn Sherif, who had the idea of ​​doing this research. For this they selected two

groups of children between 10 and 11 years of age without a history of conflict, stable families and a correct childhood to avoid external conditions.

First of all, none of the members of both groups (a total of 24 children) had prior knowledge of the experiment, and none of them knew each other or had interbred, since they were selected from different schools. It is important to insist on this section for the successful completion of the experiment.

The 3 phases of the study

A place was selected in the open field, in nature. It is the ideal place to get rid of any social stigma, a way of equating the individual with the rest due to the fact of wearing the same clothing, sharing a similar space and respecting the same.

The experiment It was held in the well-known Natural Park of the Cueva de los Ladrones (Oklahoma, USA), and from there comes its name. As soon as they set foot on the field, the tutors randomly divided the children into two groups, called Group A and Group B.

1. Identity feeling

In this first phase or stage of the experiment, the authors are in charge of encourage the feeling of belonging to a group through joint activities like swimming, hiking, or finding wood for campfires. In short, activities that strengthen interpersonal relationships.

2. conflict phase

In the second stage of the robbers den experiment, the teachers introduced elements or situations of friction between the two participating groups, differentiating facts that provoked conflict. The verbal confrontation was increasing its presence, and the children expressly requested competitive activities to see who was better.

3. collaboration phase

Surprised by how easy the friction phase had been, decided to interrupt it and move quickly to the reconciliation phase. For this, the researchers took pains to carry out activities with a common goal to eliminate those artificial prejudices that had been created. An imaginary agent was introduced who intended to wipe out their edible reserves.

Again, the results were again significant. Groups A and B decided to put aside their differences to fight a single enemy. Apart from going in the same direction, the gestures of solidarity and fraternity that occurred between them also increased. The bad guy was no longer “the other”.

Revealing results

And what is the thieves cave experiment for? This type of research aims to clear up some unknowns that we often ask ourselves. The results of the aforementioned case showed curious data, especially considering that the participants were people with no special predisposition to conflict.

The teachers were overwhelmed by the ease with which the groups came to create a feeling of hatred towards each other. **It got to the extreme of not wanting to sit with each other at lunchtime, avoiding any type of close contact, including visual. As we mentioned previously, this phase had to be shortened.

On the other hand, collaboration overcame confrontation just as quickly. What does this tell us? Good, surely the human being is more manipulable than many really think, a phenomenon that the ruling, economic and scientific classes take advantage of very well. It is enough that they tell us that something is bad or good to believe it.