The thief cave experiment: creating conflicts from nothing
We often ask ourselves 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 for collaboration between people. The thief's cave experiment is a way to clear all these doubts , with surprising results.
This type of study was devised in the mid-twentieth century, just after the end of the Second World War, at which time many psycho-social experiments surfaced that responded to many unknowns derived from the conflict.
What is the thief cave experiment?
The thieves' cave experiment took place in the United States, near Oklahoma, and was designed to detect the prejudices and ideological burdens that individuals carry with them on shoulders, often causing the most serious problems such as xenophobia, misogyny, and homophobia. Intolerance "of the other", in short. There is a kind of mantra of "them against us" with which we often think we do not feel identified.
There were then two professors from the University of Oklahoma in the United States, Muzafer Sherif and Carolyn Sherif, those who had the idea of doing this research. For this they selected two groups of children between 10 and 11 years of age No 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 or had crossed paths, 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 download any social stigma, a way to equate the individual with the rest by the fact of wearing the same clothing, sharing a similar space and respect for it.
The experiment was held in the well-known Natural Park of the Cave of the Thieves (Oklahoma, USA), and that's where his name comes from. As soon as they stepped on the ground, the tutors divided the children into two groups, called Group A and Group B, in a completely random way.
1. Identity feeling
In this first phase or stage of the experiment, the authors are responsible for encourage the feeling of belonging to a group through joint activities like swimming, hiking or finding wood for bonfires. In short, activities that strengthen interpersonal relationships.
2. Conflict phase
In the second stage of the thieves' cave experiment, the teachers introduced elements or situations of friction between the two participating groups, differentiating facts that would provoke conflict. The verbal confrontation was increasing its presence , and the children expressly asked for competitive activities to check who was better.
3. Collaboration phase
Surprised by how easy the friction phase had been, They 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 wanted to put an end to his edible reserves.
Again, the results were again significant. Groups A and B They decided to set aside their differences to fight a single enemy . Apart from going in the same direction, gestures of solidarity and fraternity that were among them were also increasing. The bad guy was no longer "the other".
Revealing results
And what good is the experiment of the thieves' cave? This type of research aims to clear up some unknowns that we often raise. The results of the mentioned case showed curious data, especially taking into account that the participants were people without a special predisposition to the conflict.
The teachers were overwhelmed by the ease with which the groups came to create a feeling of hatred towards others. ** The extreme of not wanting to sit down with each other at lunchtime , avoiding any type of surrounding, visual contact. As we discussed earlier, this phase had to be abbreviated.
On the other hand, collaboration was overcoming the confrontation with the same speed. What does this tell us? All right, surely the human being is more manipulable than many people really think , a phenomenon that the ruling, economic and scientific classes take advantage of very well. It is enough to be told that something is bad or good to believe it.
