PREMIUM CONTENT
“I’m going to put you into groups.” Nothing strikes fear in our hearts quite like these seemingly benign words. No matter your age or education level, whether you imagine these words are spoken in a high school classroom or at a seminar, I bet you can feel the tension in your gut at the thought.
But why? I’ve been in plenty of these situations and survived them all. You’ve probably been there too. And even though one side of our brain tells us it’s not a big deal, we can handle it, the other side goes into expectation panic mode.
What if I can’t meet the expectations of the other group members? What if they can’t meet mine? What if this inability to collaborate leads to a failed assignment? What if I end up having to do all the work?
What we are really saying is, “What if they’re not like me?” We bring our prejudices with us and form instinctual expectations of the other group members. In our minds, we assign the roles of leader, slacker, know-it-all, butt kisser, drone, etc.
We provide an expectation for ourselves as well, which role we will fill. Whether that is who we are in life outside that group or not, that is absolutely who we will be inside this group.
Remember Our Discussion About Campaign Slogans
In our post, “Are You Tired of Divisive Political Messages?”, I introduced the idea that campaign slogans are a catalyst for uniting and dividing us, i.e. putting us into groups. That we can easily be manipulated by just a few words spoken confidently over and over again. As I’ve given this concept more consideration, I’ve begun to understand part of the reason why we allow this to happen.
Let’s go back to that classroom, but this time the instructor says, “Go ahead and pick your own group.” Which group do you choose to join? Probably the group of people you already know, or people who look friendly, or people who look like you. It’s only natural. It’s a way of protecting ourselves from the Expectation Gap, the unknown.
You Get a Group, You Get a Group, Everyone Gets a Group
I was recently introduced to the Robbers Cave Experiment by my Sage (my ex-husband, Matt, who I introduced in the post, “Three People Who Will Help You Become Your Best Self.”) In this experiment, 24 boys were placed into rival groups and eventually chaos ensued. It got me to thinking, maybe the need to be part of a group — either by force or of our own accord — explains why we are so easily united and divided; we really want that group stability. Maybe it’s why we let ourselves get sucked into campaign slogans and the like.
Let’s explore a few social psychology studies and see what we find.
Robbers Cave Experiment (1954)
There's Only Enough for Me
The Premise
Muzafer Sherif and his fellow researchers set out to observe how intergroup relations, conflict and cooperation, develop. The groups to be observed were comprised of 22 white, middle-class boys, ages 11 and 12. The boys did not know each other prior to the study, and, for most, this was the first time they had attended a summer camp.
The boys were randomly placed into two groups. Each group took a bus to a Boy Scout Camp inside Robbers Cave State Park, where they planned to stay for three weeks. The groups were taken to separate sides of the camp, about a half-mile apart, and were unaware that the other existed for the first week.
The Emergence of Group Expectations
During the first week of camp, the groups participated in various team building activities — pitching tents, building bridges, making meals, etc. The researchers noticed that social hierarchies emerged quickly as the boys came to recognize who the leaders were and who among them had special skills. The leaders began to introduce regulations and rituals, such as saying grace during meals. And chains of command were established to tackle larger tasks like cleaning up areas of the camp.
As a formal sign of solidarity, each group adopted a name and fashioned a flag. The groups would now be known as the Eagles and the Rattlers.
Scarcity of Resources
In the next stage of the experiment, the researchers, posing as camp counselors, allowed the groups to “discover” each other. Specifically, the Rattlers found the Eagles playing on “their” baseball field. Consequently, the groups started competing against each other in activities such as baseball, tug-of-war, touch football, etc.
The researchers revealed that the boys could receive prizes for winning these games. However, there were a limited numbers of prizes, so these trophies became a great source of pride.
From this point on, the researchers noted that the groups spent a lot of time defining themselves and the other group. Each labeled the “other” group with derogatory names and determined that their group was better than the “other” group — they were brave, tough, winners, and good sports.
The experiment spiraled out of control when the Eagles discovered the Rattlers’ flag on “their” baseball field. They burned the flag, and the Rattlers in turn burned the Eagles’ flag. The retaliations escalated to raids of each other’s cabins, theft of each other’s prizes, and, ultimately, hand-to-hand combat.
The Desire to Be in the Winning Group
In this example of group fabrication, the boys felt safe and superior within their groups. They felt they had a better chance of winning the limited resources, frivolous trinkets and rights to the baseball field, if they stuck with the boys they knew, the boys who’d come to meet their expectations.
The Stanford Prison Experiment (1971)
Stereotypes Realized
The Premise
The purpose of this study was to determine whether the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was a result of the guards’ personalities (dispositional) or a result of the prison environment (situational). It was advertised to potential participants as a study of the psychological effects of prison life. In my novice opinion, it became a study in how people react when forced into stereotyped group roles.
24 male, college students were carefully selected from a group of 75 volunteers, leaving only participants with no known psychological problems, medical disabilities, or history of crime or drug abuse. The men were paid $15 per day to participate in the study, slated to run for two weeks. (The experiment got so out of hand that it only ran for six days.)
The participants were randomly selected to play the role of prisoner or guard, 12 of each, in a simulated prison environment. The research team, led by Philip Zimbardo, created a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford University psychology building to house the participants.
I think we can all see where this is going.
I Don’t Identify with This Group
My guess is that few of the men, if any, wanted to be in the prisoner group. As a prisoner, one expects to be locked up; to have his rights taken away; to be powerless! You don’t get to boss people around, just for kicks, and walk around smacking your billy club in your hand, striking fear in the hearts of men.
So I’m thinking those relegated to this role took a pretty good blow to their egos. Then consider the fact that the prisoners were arrested at their homes, by actual cops, and without notice. They were taken to the real, local police station, fingerprinted, photographed, booked, the works.
The prisoners were stripped of both their clothes and names and issued identical uniforms and identifying numbers. The result: deindividuation, the loss of self-awareness in a group. Or in other words, a breeding ground for acting out prescribed roles.
Oh Yeah! I’m One of the Cool Kids!
I’m sure there was an unspoken understanding that the guards were the superior group. They had the privilege of donning dapper, identical uniforms, complete with special sunglasses. With the sunglasses securely in place, the guards could avoid making eye contact with the prisoners; thereby blocking personal connection with those lowly souls.
The guards were told to maintain law and order by whatever means necessary, short of physical violence, and to command respect. The guards took these words to heart and adapted to their roles quickly and with ease. As one of the guards put it, “Acting authoritatively can be fun. Power can be a great pleasure.”
The Stereotypes Receive Vindication
In a nutshell, the guards began to harass the prisoners and exercise their control within hours. As a group, they began demanding obedience and detaining resources when rules were violated. After some of the prisoners attempted to rebel, the guards went so far as to disrobe the prisoners, discard their beds, withhold their food, and deny bathing “privileges.”
As a result, the prisoners came to expect that they were completely dependent on the guards, and the pre-defined groups of prisoners and guards were realized. Men who considered themselves assertive prior to their christening as a “prisoner” became brown-nosers (there’s an inappropriate joke in there somewhere). And they started siding with the guards against other prisoners, in an attempt to gain favor.
The men’s expectations that the prisoners were inferior to the guards had been substantiated.
Check out the companion post,
You Can’t Make Me (Or Can You)?
The researchers’ take on their findings was that the guards’ brutality was situational, caused by the prison environment. Their findings supported the idea that we can become so immersed in group norms that we begin to lose our sense of self. We even being to lose our sense of personal responsibility.
I’m sure there’s some truth to all that, but I’m not so sure it was the environment, per se. I think the expectations these participants brought into the experiment with them — the stereotypes they were expected to perpetuate and the social system they expected to be a part of — may have had more bearing on their behavior.
One of the prisoners, Douglas Korpi, claimed that he staged a psychotic break because he wanted to go home and study for a graduate exam. One of the guards, Dave Eschelman, claims he set out to force action in order to give the researchers something to work with. He looked at the experiment “as a kind of improv exercise” and wanted to “[create] this despicable guard persona.”
As Korpi’s and Eschelman’s statements suggest, the participants thought they knew what the researchers expected of them and thought they could manipulate the system to their advantage.
Korpi was not allowed to go home, which led the other prisoners to believe they could not leave of their own accord. Eschelman’s actions caused the prisoners to rebel, which incited the other guards to engage in brutal behavior they had not known they were capable of.
Because the social system was not working the way they had expected it to, submission became a norm for the prisoners and violence became a norm for the guards.
The Blue-Eyed/Brown-Eyed Exercise (1968)
I Don't Know Better
The Premise
It was the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Jane Elliott, a 3rd grade teacher in Riceville, Iowa, created an exercise to help her students understand the horrible act. To help them feel what discrimination felt like.
Her class consisted of 28 small-town, white children who had experienced similar upbringings. The children were split into two groups — the blue-eyed people and the brown-eyed people.
The blue-eyed kids were asked to wear arm bands to visually separate them from the brown-eyed kids. The blue-eyed children were also given special rules, such as the directive to use a paper cup instead of drinking straight from the water fountain.
Mrs. Elliott informed her students that melanin, a chemical in our bodies, causes intelligence. She went on to say, “Brown-eyed people have more of that chemical in their eyes, so brown-eyed people are better than those with blue eyes. Blue-eyed people sit around and do nothing. You give them something nice, and they just wreck it.”
Authority Always Wins
Remember, we’re talking about eight-year-olds here. They are prone to believe anything an authority figure tells them. And did they ever.
In the span of one day, the kids dreamed up many group expectations. One brown-eyed boy speculated that if Mrs. Elliott had brown eyes she would be the principal or superintendent, not just a teacher. Another speculated that they might catch something from the blue-eyed children if they were allowed to use the same drinking fountain.
By the end of the day, the brown-eyed children were going so far as to tell the blue-eyed children to stay out of their way because they were better than them. And Mrs. Elliott noticed that suddenly some of the “slower” brown-eyed kids were showing confidence and leadership. They had become more outgoing and were beaming with the widest smiles she had seen on them.
In contrast, many of the blue-eyed children could be found sulking and apologizing to the brown-eyed kids simply for being in their space.
Sociologists theorize that societal archetypes emerge around the age of six or seven. These children, at eight years of age, didn’t necessarily know what society’s expectations were for them, but they did know that they were supposed to listen to their teacher. Not only that, they were supposed to believe whatever their teacher told them, without question.
Join Groups with Intention
So what have we learned about groups? Groups are bad. I’m going off the grid!
Okay, groups aren’t really all bad. We need groups to survive and thrive. They offer both protection and connection, which are critical to human life. But we should be aware of what we are expecting out of group interactions and what is expected of us.
The lesson to take away from the Robbers Cave boys is that being part of a group can lead us to focus on winning and on making sure we obtain more trophies than our perceived competition. As a member of a “winning” group, you might miss out on opportunities to build connections and work toward realizing your full potential because you are too focused on achieving material gains. Instead of focusing on scarcity of resources, why not focus on how your group could use the resources it is privileged enough to have to help another group “win”?
The lesson to take away from the Stanford Prison men is that we can choose how we react to situations, even when they are forced upon us. These men were forced into group roles and let the stereotypes of those roles take over. And when the social system they had become a part of did not operate according to their expectations, they acted in ways that went against their character. We can recognize when this is happening to us. That queasy feeling you get in your gut when you are acting outside of your values is there for a reason. Listen to it.
The lesson to take away from the brown-eyed children is that we should respectfully question authority figures and the groups they are trying to force us into. We need to ask ourselves, are we obediently following an authority figure just because they are saying what we want to hear? And if we are, are we isolating ourselves from “others” who would otherwise be a part of our circle? Who could help us realize our full potential. If we don’t ask these questions, we run the risk of living a life prescribed for us; one that diminishes regard for those affected by our actions.
I’ll leave you with a quote from psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Remember, you are the director of your mind, and you can change the course of your thoughts if you are willing.
“[Our minds] unite us into teams, divide us against other teams, and blind us to the truth.”
Did one of these group situations sound familiar to one you have experienced? If so, how did you react in that situation? How would you change your reaction now? Let us know in the comments!
Related Articles
Links
“The Illusion of Asymmetric Insight” from You Are Not So Smart
“Stanford Prison Experiment” from Simply Psychology
“Lesson of a Lifetime” from Smithsonian.com
