sherif

• Aim: To investigate intergroup relations over a period when various experimentally induced situations were introduced e.g., competition.
• Procedure: 22 middle class boys attended a summer camp. First 5-6 days they were put into two groups (separated from the other group) and given cooperative activities in their group allowing them to form ingroups. Researchers aka camp staff observed the verbal and non-verbal communication between the boys to see how they rated each other.
• Procedure: Stage 2: the two groups were introduced to each other and were victims to orchestrated aggravating situations which they’d believe was caused by the other group e.g., had to compete for goals which was the limited resource as only one of the groups could win. This formed in group and outgroups leading to intergroup competition. Many of the boys started name calling.
• procedure: Stage 3: final 6-7 days a superordinate goal was introduced with the aims of reducing hostility and prejudice between the boys e.g., fixing a broken-down camp bus to get home or joint camp-over where they had to work together to find food.
• Findings: two sides wanted to fight but a counsellor intervened, and the boys required little to no encouragement to be competitive and as soon as the groups found out about the other groups, they resorted to “us and them” language.
• Conclusion: intergroup conflict is inevitable when competition is present but can be reduced by introducing a superordinate goal.
• One strength of this study is that it can be applied to real life to reduce conflict between groups at school or any competitive situation. Study shows how competition and frustration causes hostility towards outgroup which suggests that discrimination and violence can also be reduced if ‘work’ and ‘education’ were shared more equally within different groups. It can also be used in schools by making students work together to reduce prejudice. This is a strength as it provides realistic solutions for reducing prejudice which would also limit violent behaviours within society.
• A weakness is that the results of this study cannot be generalised for other social classes, cultures, and genders. The sample only consisted of 22 white protestant boys from a middle-class family. Although the results can be generalised for most middle-class boys, this is a weakness as we cannot say that girls would also show high ingroup solidarity and outgroup hostility the same way that the boys did. Hostility and prejudice may also be shown differently in different cultures. Furthermore, as this is a very small sample, any anomalous behaviours would not be averaged out and identified.