re Bill Powers (940822.0905 MDT) on Polarization and related discussions
What we need is a theory of human behavior that lets us understand how
people work, and with which we can work out some answers to the tangles
of conflict into which people get.... Hmm. Anybody know of such a theory?
I am uncertain where the thread on polarization but it is an important
phenomenon to investigate and I want to remind readers of CSG-Net that Phil
Runkel has commented on this phenomenon from the perspective of PCT.He does
so by way of discussing a classic piece of research in social psychology
which might bear review by PCT theorists disciples and afficianados who are
interested in group formation, development and structure in general,
polarization and its resolution in particular. Those who have read
Runkel's work or who have talked with him know of his telling critiques of
social psychology in general with one exception. He thinks that Muzafer
Sherif's _Robber's Cave Experiment- remains one of the classics in 20th
century behavioral science. I was pleased to read and hear this from Phil
since I took two courses with Sherif when I was a young graduate student.
First in Connecticut when he was a Yale and subsequently in Oklahoma when
he moved to the University at Norman, Sherif brought previously
unacquainted boys together in a summer camp setting, observed and recorded
their interaction and formation of two separate groups. The groups
subsequently engaged in a "tournament of games" over a ten day period of
time and the competition increasingly was accompanied by name calling, food
fights, occasional fisticuffs, raids on one another's cabins, etc. All the
while the cabin counselors (Sherif's graduate students) and the camp
custodian (Sherif) were recording attitudes toward and interactions with
both "in-group" and "out-group" members. Polarization was evident on all
measures.
The next stage in the study was to reduce polarization. Without recapping
the efforts which failed, I turn to the effort which succeeded. Sherif
introduced problems or disturbances which affected all members of all
groups: blockage of the water supply to the camp, disturbing drinking,
cooking, bathing; an incapacitated truck carrying groceries from town to
the camp site several miles distant; a very popular rental movie (in
pre-video days) which cost more than remained in the camp treasury. In
each case the combined efforts of all members of both groups were required
to solve the problem: to locate and remove the blockage in nearly a
quarter-mile of pipe from the mountain top tank to the campsite; combined
effort on the "tug-of-war" rope (from the tournament of games) attached to
the truck to pull it to the top of a hill so that it could coast downhill
and start (after a counselor had conveniently replaced the rotor in the
distrubitor); financial contributions from the boys own pockets to
supplement the meagre camp treasury and rent the desired movie. Sherif
referred to each of these problems as "superordinate goals" (Runkel refers
to them as superordinate reference signals) for which each boy had to
control to match his perceptions to the reference-signal-in-common. Both
observed interaction and recorded preferences following the "third problem
and its resolution" showed dramatic reductions in polizarization, a virtual
reversal of interactions and preferences prior to the introduction of the
"first problem and its resolution".
The briefest summary of Sherif's study is found in _Scientific American_
195 (1956):54-58. A longer version is Muzafer Sherif's "Superordinate
Goals in the Reduction of Intergroup Conflict," American Journal of
Sociology, 60 (1955 ):349-356. The best version is Sherif, Muzafer
(1988) _The Robbers Cave Experiments_. Middletown, CN:" Weslyan
University Press.
Sherif repeated the camp study three times. The use of his strategy for
studying the development and resolution of polarization has apparently been
repeated dozens of times in week-long training sessions with business
executives, this according to the report of two of Sherif's early graduate
students: Robert R. Blake and Jane Srygley Mouton. See their (1979)
"Intergroup problem solving in organizations: from theory to practice."
Pp. 19-32 in William G. Austin and Stephen Worchel (eds.) _The Social
POsychology of Intergroup Relations._ Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing
Company.
Clark McPhail
Professor of Sociology
326 Lincoln Hall
University of Illinois
702 S. Wright
Urbana, IL 61801 USA
off/voice mail: 217-333-2528 dept/secretary: 217-333-1950
fax: 217-333-5225 home: 217-367-6058
e-mail: cmcphail@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu