Sherif Study (Classic) Flashcards
What happened in stage 2?
-They held a sporting tourdement where they did activites such as baseball, tug of war and counting beans.
-Introduced competition to the boys and started name calling (cheat, stinker, sneak) and physical fights started.
What methods were used to observe the boys behaviour?
-Observation
-Sociometric analysis
-Experimenting
-Tape recordings
Where did the study take place?
Robbers cave state park, Oklahoma.
What happened in stage 1?
-Groups were kept apart for 1 week and di activites such as hiking and camping.
-The groups had given themselves names: eagles and rattlers.
What were the three stages of the study?
-In-group formation
-Friction phase
-Integration phase.
What were the boys grouped from?
-IQ
-Sporing ability
Where were all the boys from?
America, Oklahoma
What shared characteristic did the boys have?
All prodestants
What was Sherif’s sample?
22, 11 year old boys
What was the aim of the study?
To test the development of in-group behaviour to include out-group hostility through competition and how this can be reduced.
What did the reasearches introduce to reduce prejudice/hostility?
Superordinate goals- where everyone has a collective goal to work on and therefore work together.
What happened in stage 3?
-Introduced superordinate goals to improve everyone’s relations (e.g: making the camp truck break down so they had to fix it).
What were the results between stage 2 and 3 between the rattlers and the eagles?
-Rattles increased for 6.4: in stage 2 to 36.4% in stage 3 for out-group friendships.
-Eagles increased from 7.5% in stage 2 to 23.2% in stage 3 for out group friendships.
What is the conclusion?
-When there was a lot of competition between the two groups there was a lot of physical fighting and name calling due to the researchers creating prejudice.
-Prejudice can be reduced by introducing superordinate goals.
What bias is the study high in?
Beta bias
-Generalises all individuals but they don’t know females would react this way or be less aggressive as males have a higher level of testosterone which makes someone more aggressive.
What is beta bias?
The tendency to minimise differences between genders.
What was the prizes for the winning group in the tordument?
Pen knives - created more competion.
Why is the study not very generalisable?
-Andocentric sample- can’t represnt women.
-All prodestants so have shared characteristics.
-Ethnocentric sample- all from America/Oklahoma.
Why is the study reliable?
Quite standerdies as the tasks and enviroment are kept the same for each participant.
Why is the study applicable to real life situation?
Superordinate goals can be useful in real life to reduce reduce prejudice.
Why is the study valid?
-Didn’t know they were being observed so there are less demand characteristics, ppts are less likely to change behaviour.
-Triangulation of data- many techniques used so high validity.
-High ecological validity- in a summer camp, naturalistic setting.
High mundane realism- sporting tasks.
Why is the study low in validity?
-Low mundane realism for counting beans tasks, can influence unnatural behaviour.
What is the triangulation of data?
Multiple measure to measure the same thing (all different means low validity).
What ethical guidelines are not followed?
Consent- cannot get informed consent as no one knew about the observation.
Deception- not aware of observation
Protection from harm- has physical fights, name calling can cause psychological harm which is a product of the researcher causing prejudice.
What does it mean if a study is low in ethics?
Lowers credibility.
