The Dark Side of Science: The Robbers Cave Experiment 1954 (Short Documentary)

Would you have enjoyed being in the Robbers Cave Experiment? 

Any suggestions for a future Dark Side of Science video? Let me know in the comments!

Is it just me or does the artificial hierarchy produced seem like an average ass middle school experience?…

A note about Marxism: Marx's theories are usually wrongly understood as the ideology of the Soviet Union - mainly with the horrors of the Stalinist period. Marx's work is actually quite complex and the most valuable part is called Marx's Method - a method of analysis that can be used on a wide range of fields. Contrary to the dogmatic views the so called "marxists" often hold, Karl Marx had no problem changing his mind when data showed he was wrong and was also an admire of Captalism and Adam Smith, for instance. Here in Brazil, since I entered school, the type of History we were - and still are - taught is the Marxist History championed by Eric Hobsbawn: economic and production relations are more important than Generals and political leaders. For Brazilians, studying why the Portuguese started sailing the oceans is important and this is what we learn:

In 1453, Constantinople falls into Ottoman control. The Ottomans start to charge a very high fee for Europeans trading with the Asia who had to cross their land making the products from those regions extremely expensive. At the same time, Portugual emerged as the first large political unity of Europe capable of, through taxation, accumulate the capital needed to sponsor the naval explorations they are famous for. While sailing the Atlântic they get a breeze blowing west and found themselves in a land they named Brazil.

We also learn why the Portuguese manage to do all that so well - because of the knowledge transmitted to them by the Arabs that includes navigation techniques and ship building technology. What we don't learn is the name of the Ottoman General nor of the battles to conquer Constantinople, for instance. Contrary to popular perception, Marxism has entered the minds of the most powerful minds of the Western World like Bill Clinton's and can be sumarized in the famous phrase "it's the economy, stupid". Historian Adam Tooze often refers to Wall Street people as "those Marxists from Wall Street". If Marx were alive today, all that would hurt him much more than that huge life long pimple he had on his ass!

Robert's Cave state park is a dog of a place!

Early MKULTRA

Why does the video start with specifying that it was eleven “white” kids ????

"wow this reminds me of Lord of the Flies!" oh

Lmao Oklahoma is not a city. Oklahoma is a state with many towns and cities one of which is called Oklahoma City

Eugenics is the offspring of Darwinism.

Gotta love how one/two experiments involving less than 100 participants influenced an entire theory.

Eleven white elven white

I believe the two inch swiss army knife is not really a weapon

Before you mentioned lord of the flies, I was already thinking about it in relation to this scenario

So this is the original survivor

I was out in Hartshorne Oklahoma the girl I was staying with wanted to take me to Robbers Cave because it was supposedly just where Jesse James and his gang had a hideout I have no idea that it was also used for this madness

A knife is not a weapon it's a tool by default, the intent of the wielder is what turns it into a weapon.

You mean to tell me boys become friends after a scuffle? Crazy, I’ve never seen two boys fight in a lunchroom, punch eachother in the face, then walk out of the lunch room arms wrapped around eachother laughing and smiling. Yeah that’s very uncommon. Lol

Very interesting!👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

I might be stupid, but this sounds kind of fun

1. Credentials will still get you into anywhere.
2. A pocketknife (usually a Swiss Army knife, which is technically a multitool) doesn't even qualify as a weapon. Check your lack of rights.

Ofc the jews would sponsor such experiments doh

Pre-teens with weapons was a thing, but pre-teens back then had a better sense of boundaries. I was 10 when I got my first firearm (a .22-cal rifle). My friends and I would fill a pocket with ammo, strap on our 22s, and hop on our bikes to go plink tin cans in the woods. Our parents' greatest concern was, "be home in time for dinner." Nobody got hurt. And none of us kids ever considered picking up a rifle in anger. Times today are way different.

Honestly not that bad. You rated this a number higher than the Stanford Prison Experiment! The parents definitely should have been almost fully informed on what was going to happen, especially since they wouldn’t even be there, but no serious injuries occurred, and it seems like the kids even had a pretty good time. I would probably look back on it fondly if I took part of it.

This was the dumbest social experiment I've ever heard of. I'm amazed it took him all this to know what would happen. I didn't need this social experiment tonknow this would happen. It was super obvious.

Great coverage. Id be interested in researching an ethical version of this ingroup/outgroup theory

This sounds like the older Ernest goes to camp movies.

Gave them weapons? In the 50s it was a pocket knife. Nobody was radical enough to think of it as a weapon. I wish today was like how things used to be.

I used to think mcarthism was evil then i learned that there were actual marxists trying to uproot American society. He took it a little too far but ousted a lot of the same types of people who are brainwashing kids in schools and colleges today

Looser 😂???

John. I have just enjoyed your Robbers Cave Experiment video from a currently cold overcast and rainy part of Old Hickory Tennessee USA. Great job as always.

so this is great but what you dont have is can it work with say a group from a different religion and a different race and culture I bet in the 50s you would have had a completely different result if they took a group of kids from new york and a group from Oklahoma i doubt you would have got the bonding

Why would the boys uniting against the adults disprove his hypothesis. They united over a problem that they perceived affected them all. Isn't that exactly what the water challenge in the integration stage was about? That's still usable data, even though it didn't occur when they expected it to.

Have you done Unit 731 yet?

cough Gaza cough

I kind of get giving it a seven, there were definitely a lot of things that could’ve gone wrong but the end result was pretty tame for this series. I’d like to hear how the kids look back on it

Finally a happy ending in a plainly difficult video? no way!

no not everyone was into eugenics. just those who thought they were more evolved. Germany was not fascist. Communism is leftist but so is fascism. and national socialism. not sure if that was your intended message. the experimentation is about creating and manipulating tribalism. the success of these "academics" is evident in our current political and social environment. Leftisim at its "finest"...

Seems to strongly reflect what's happening on a larger scale in modern times. Only now it's being led by people with no intention of a positive integration.

At the time it was left leaning??? They just hid it better.

Of course commie jews created this

Eugenics works. It is just inhumane.

I remember as a kid taking field trips to the zoo with my school and just not liking the other field trip groups from other schools for no reason. I just didn’t like them and they didn’t like us.

So the researcher charged the parents over $200 to use their kids as lab rats. I wonder if the parents even knew it wasn’t a summer camp and their kids were being used as lab rats?

Why so high on the morality scale ?? It would be a 2 or a 3 max for me

Honest to god makes me wonder about some of the weird stuff my school sent me off to do as a kid. I wouldn't go for a 7, it's not like they stoked tensions but they did facilitate them. At the very least it is an insight into boy's minds, weapons, food, animals and sports

In the late 1970's I went on a 2-week camp outing with my 6th grade class, so I was about 10y/o. They did those 'cabin inspections' and they were playing games with it. We had to make our beds 'military style' which very few students knew what it was, and the counselors didn't show any of us. I was a military brat so I showed a few, then they showed a few etc... and in 3 nights everyone in the camp was making their beds 'perfect'. Counselors didn't like that though, so they kept telling our cabin that I failed to make my bed properly, trying to cause my mates to turn on me. Didn't work though 'cause everyone knew I was the teacher. Couple more days pass and they announce that I failed inspection again so no one in the camp gets dessert, this time trying to incite the entire camp against me. Unbeknownst to me, all the students (over 100) decided in advance to refuse to eat anything, called out the counselors on their lies and BS, and a couple of the rich students had phoned their parents. Those game-player counselors got fired and they had to bring in new for the 2nd week. We all had a great time after that.

Your research is great. Your opinions are ok for an uneducated 12 yr old. Progress is not always positive. The 50's guaranteed were better than today and my guess is globaly.

And now you see how they experiment on division, these experiments are still in full practice today politically. You have 2 groups of individuals only separated by political ideology the contest is voting who can get more votes. Now you see each of the groups attack the other for their own perceived benefit. The entire time no one is questioning the fact that they have more in common with the individuals of the other party than those who they "share political ideology". While the whole time the politicians have no plan on appeasing anyone's wants / needs but their own donors. The question is when will we stand up?