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!

Very interesting that the children in the 1953 experiment correctly identified that the real outgroup was the researchers rather than the artificial outgroup of other children created by the researchers.

this is such a 90's kids' movie plot. Summer camp, secret scientists, rivalries, tasks, bullying, and a happy ending with a moral of the story

My take: I might have been lied to, but if I had paid $260 and found out my son had actually outsmarted a bunch of University professors i would be very proud of him.

"When preteens were given weapons!" I was like 9 years old when I got my first pocket knife, in the 90s. Granted it had all of a 2" blade, but learning to use a small tool knife responsibly is something I think most children should learn.

It warms my heart to think about a group of children realizing that they're the subjects of an experiment, and rallying against the researchers!

As someone who was at a summer camp as a child that immediately formed tribalistic conflict and devolved into violence because the only adult in the camp didnt keep an eye on us I feel like I've gone through a similar experience. It got to the point where a kid got rushed off to a hospital due to sharpened stick related injuries. Based on my anecdotal experience I doubt the researchers behavior was required to incite violence or that intergroup mending at the end.

Interesting that you consider the knives as prizes in a summer camp as "weapons". My mind immediately thought of them as fitting wilderness survival tools.

It's extremely reassuring that if you show people/children who the real out-group is that manipulates others into situations like these, there is a chance they will unite to revolt against the true out-group.

The real life Lord of the Flies actually ended well. 6 boys who wrecked on a Pacific Island near Tonga actually helped each other survive for more than a year. They were also different races. This shows that such situations can actually end well (especially when they don't have researchers antagonizing them).

Honestly, as a teacher, I think the 1953 experiment sounds downright funny. The researchers were so careless and the children were a lot more clever than they were given credit for. I'd love to hear a bit more out of it, but I suppose there isn't much information since it was canceled?

I have a feeling many fights with children were rarely stopped quickly. I’m from that neck of the woods. If a fight broke out there was an older voice saying “let them get it outta their system”. The elders felt that there was typically a lesson to be learned in a fight wether you win or lose. 1954 would’ve probably held that sentiment a lot more strongly than we do today.

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.

Aside from the lack of consent and other issues that can be justified in the context of an experiment, they actually made the parents pay for it. "We want to do a psychological study on your kid in the middle of nowhere for a few weeks. And no, you can't visit. So... will you be paying us by cash or check?"

“Arminian deportations” is a really nice way of saying Genocide…

I love the little pause he does when he tells you the weather where he lives. Like, it’s an audio cue where you can clearly tell he’s looking out the window to see what it’s like outside before continuing on with his outro.

I live in Oklahoma, and Robbers cave is one of my favorite places to go. I never knew about this experiment till today.

Let's just take a moment to appreciate that whether it was ethical or scientific or none of the above, these people took some kids out to the woods, got them to form gangs, and armed them.

If you really want to study "in groups," just be a teenage girl going through an all-girls high school. It only took a week or two for me to realize what groups I wasn't welcome in. And this was in the early 1990s. I can't imagine it has gotten any better over time.

I'm personally very suprised that you gave this a 7 out of 10. That's higher than the scores you gave in other videos where they tortured and killed animals. I would give this a 2 or 3. I probably wouldn't mind someone putting me through a similar test honestly.

I have always maintained that the worst thing that happens to children is adults ...

"But where to get so many children...?" Best mad scientist quote ever.

Let's all take a moment to appreciate how much work it takes to create a 30 minute mini documentary! Thank you John from Plainly Difficult!

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.

I just stumbled across your channel and want to say kudos to you. Also that those situations were still going on into the late 90's. I recall church camp being divided into groups and pitted against each other, along with bunk inspections, all with prize vouchers for commissary (junk food) all that from a group that says "Love fellow Man", "Turn thy other cheek!". Man is capitalized to mean mankind as a whole.

Nice one 🍻 'Why are there microphones in our tents?' Also, children are good at noticing when adults are acting differently than usual. I feel like the researchers heavily underestimated the cognitive abilities of the young lads.

I was expecting a more horrific outcome from the experiment, but at least am glad that it ended more peacefully than harmfully. I do wish that the least the information was given to them by the end, in an attempt to be truthful and mend any conflict, thus teaching a lesson about the dangers of tribalism and unreasonable hatred. This entire study was practically unnecessary given the natural instinct and situations that arise in school settings, and definitely would have been possible to witness naturally in the 50s.

I was a boyscout - even without an experiment, we could get pretty tribal. Each troop of scouts (your whole group from one source) was broken down into patrols of about a dozen boys each. The patrols regularly competed in events against each other, tended to form their own cliques, and occasionally harassed the other patrols in the troop. When multiple troops came together (for a jamboree, or large summer camp) it got worse. Whole troops would harass one another - tent and camp raids, etc. It was never bad enough to start fights, and the adults and counselors usually just considered it "boys being boys" and all having a bit of good fun. But if wouldn't have taken much. I remember at once large camp, we made small catapults to prove our lashing skills. They could lob tennis balls a bit more than 100 yards. And so of course, a few patrols from 2 troops got together, set up catapults, and in the middle of the night started raining tennis balls and then rocks into a site at the other end of the camp. That one did cop some disciplinary action, but even 14yo me could see the counselors trying not to laugh as they described how rude it is to be woken up by rocks raining from the sky onto your campsite.

This is one where I think you cannot ignore the potential for influence and the lack of a control group absolutely skewing the results. I would love to see if modern researchers could even possibly sit down and with modern ethical and scientific guidelines create a useful comparable experiment because it seems that the "othering" behavior is so often taught and never just innate.

I am from the area around Robbers Cave, and as a kid, went to a conservative church summer camp there almost every year. It’s a beautiful area. Didn’t hear about the experiment until sociology class in college.

I'd give it a 4. While the kids may have been manipulated, the results are pretty typical of any normal summer camp or interscholastic sport.

i’m an adult volunteer for a youth group and we have summer camp every year. the kids are well cared for and counselors and volunteers (who go through extensive background checks) are always keeping watch over the kids so no drama or safety issues occur. sportsmanship and kindness are heavily promoted and any trouble (bullying, stealing, fighting, etc.)that comes along is dealt with accordingly. in short, it’s a great and safe environment, but the kids still act this way when they are around another group ( the kids are split into groups) it’s human nature to be competitive

When I was ages 2, 3 and 4,I went to something called a “laboratory preschool“. Basically it was children behaviour studies. But they didn’t tell the children. Every room had giant dark mirrors. It didn’t take me long to realise this, and to think that these giant mirrors were strange features. Me and some other children figured out that if we put our hands at the sides of our faces and looked directly into the mirrors, faces pushed against them, that we could see chairs or people on the other side. I don’t know what that meant, but I knew we were being watched. It didn’t bother me. I just realised that I had an audience for the show.😊

The experiment kind of reminds me of army basic training, where instructors promote inter squad rivalry in order to get the best out of their squad, obviously intervention occurs to prevent things getting out of hand. I think the staff may have unknowingly influenced the children, it would be impossible for them to remain totally impartial. Thought provoking episode, my only criticism would be your description of the Armenian genocide as deportations, the word genocide was coined specifically to describe those atrocities.

Plainly Difficult recommending a channel with no videos is just part of their inimitable zen style. ♡

If you tried this in 2023, half of the kids would slaughter the other half - and at least one staff member

This experiment turned into a program called Passport for Adventure. I was part of that program in 1989. It was a great program. Changed my life.

I guess you haven't heard, but the real life "Lord of the Flies" actually happened. A bunch of kids got stranded on an island. But guess what? They all worked together and thrived. That's what really happens when manipulative assholes don't interfere, be they scientists or politicians.

I'd definitely rate this one MUCH lower on the ethics scale. Maybe a 4 at most. It wasn't an inherently dangerous experiment so the consent issue doesn't seem so big to me, and the fist fighting and general mischievousnous of the boys seems pretty on par for kids in the 1950s. Given this one took on the name "real life lord of the flies" I was half expecting one kid to end up in the ER

10:05 As someone born and raised in Oklahoma, I just want to point out that Oklahoma is the state; Oklahoma City is the city. No one refers to the capital as just "Oklahoma." OKC and (with enough context) the City are acceptable shorthands for Oklahoma City. 14:11 In sufficient context, I suppose "city of Oklahoma" would point to OKC, but my gut feeling would still be to say something like "parts of Oklahoma City they had come from," "parts of the city of Oklahoma City they had come from," or "parts of the City they had come from." Also, OKC isn't the only city in the state. You could've just as easily been referring to Tulsa, among others. I hope I'm not being pedantic haha. Overall, great video! Crazy to think my aunt could've been classmates with one of the boys, as she would've 11 in 1954!

One of the most interesting stories I’ve ever heard and I’m from Oklahoma, Been to Beautiful Robbers Cave, and was in the Boy Scouts until I made Eagle Scout.

I grew up in Wilburton where Robbers cave is and have been camping there a ton both as a child in the Boy Scouts and as an adult with my children. It’s really interesting to find out about this happening in my own back yard. Good job.

'Armenian deportations' is a rather odd way to describe the massacres that happened to the Armenians en masse

This is awesome. I went to summer camp for 3 years and we were divided into groups and we became fiercely tribal. We all had different group songs and sat in separate areas during meals. Also, all the kids in my group formed sub groups depending on which city they were from. We sometimes cooperated to accomplish goals but soon after re-segregated back to our groups.

I'm half convinced this whole study is happening on a worldwide scale.

This experiment honestly doesn’t seem that bad. There was no heavy emotional damage, little kids fighting isn’t that uncommon even now, much less back then, kids steal things from each other and get overly competitive about silly things, and after it all the group all ended up friends anyway, there was no long term animosity. Whether the results were ultimately useful is another question, but I’d argue that the conclusions probably are still useful, though different from the conclusions of the original researchers, kind of like the results of the Stanford Prison Experiment Though Stanford didn’t really tell us that those in places of power will always devolve into violence if unchecked, it still shows that people can be convinced to do horrible things if they’re told it’s for a greater cause, such as the advancement of science And in the case of this experiment, I would say it’s still a good example of how groups that despise each other can come to like each other through simple contact

this is eerily similar to what I experienced during last year of my life. My country (I'm from eastern Europe) has mandatory military service. I finished my 9 month service only 2 weeks ago, everything is still very fresh. When we were brought to basic training, our company consisted of 2 platoons, around 40 boys each, each platoon seperated into 3 sections. Rivalry between the platoons quickly developed. After 11 weeks of basic training, we got sent to a combat unit we were assigned to. We were divided between two smaller, specialized companies, the staff company and heavy weapons company I served in. The division was random, and it so happened, that I was now mostly with guys from the former "other" platoon. it was weird, also, the commanders were much, much stricter, and our life was turned into social hell for like 2 months, I believe this helped with coheasion of newly formed groups. Due to both companies knowing each other, there were a lot of communication between us, even tho rivalry somehow started between the companies, even tho there was a lot of seperated friends. After the service, we organized the party, it was mainly our former platoon of basic training, thus friends, but I was the only one who was sent to the other company. it was weird to say the least. The whole service felt like a huge compilation of experiments you host on this channel. we learned to live in fear, we learnt to hide, we learnt to adapt, overcome, and not to mind external stressors. Funnily enough, I developed couple of really good friends. Well, I guess out of tens of draftees from different backgrounds, you'll find some people you enjoy being with. Thankfully as a NATO member we didn't get involved in you know what, and we got demobilized when our time was up. I wish luck on the new boys. Thank you for the video and thank you for reading.

Was this an experiment or a movie from the 90s? This should be made into a movie. It even includes food fights, bad adults to team up against, and most importantly, friendship.

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

I found your channel about two weeks ago and I can't believe it took me so long. Your content style is pretty much all I watch so it legit boggles my mind that it took so long for KZfaq to suggest your channel. I've been happily enjoying mini-binges ever since. I'm bummed that I will eventually catch up but I can't help it. I love that you actually research the topics and present them in your own words instead of regurgitating Wikipedia or some other source like a lot of channels do. This is one of the best channels on KZfaq, period. Thank you for every video, good sir. Obviously I enjoy them thoroughly. Much respect from Colorado. 👍

Calling this a "horror" is a pretty long stretch. This sounds like a typical summer camp experience.

I've been saving this video because I'm going to that group Camp, group Camp 2, at Robbers Cave State Park this weekend. I go there every year with friends. Never knew about this experiment before

I live 20 miles from Robbers Cave now (I formerly lived in Wilburton where it's located as well) & have visited there many times but never heard this story. Thanks for making this video. Very interesting! 💌 Peace & Love from Oklahoma 💌

I live in Oklahoma, and have been to the fall festival at robber’s cave dozens of times, yet i had never, ever heard of this experiment, this is just incredibly wild, and even more insane that I’ve been there several times, and may have stood where an individual from these groups could have stood.

The children rallying together against the sus experiment gives me actual hope for mankind.

The disrespect by using stolen pants as a flag is just god tier comedy

What really gets me is that I lived so close to this place all my life and have never known this

I went to school and that cured me of any great hope or respect for humanity irreparably by age 10.

me before watching plainly difficult: science ain't that scary me after watching plainly difficult: mommy help me

6:50 I don’t know why the misspelling of “loser” as “looser” bothers me so much.

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.

Imagine being able to convince somebody to pay YOU $260 to let their child be part of a science experiment!

I’m very curious at how violent the fights became. Hopefully none of the children received any severe injuries. I received an injury at summer camp that still causes me pain several decades later. It’s actually hurting right now. During “Capture the Flag”, I was one of the kids who agreed to protect our flag (guard). I caught two kids that were really close, and captured both of their socks. The boy grabbed my arm and kept twisting it slowly until it broke, even though I begged and pleaded for him to stop. The moment I saw that he wasn’t going to follow the rules, I was prepared to release the socks, but I wasn’t able to.

Dude this seemed like an awesome time for the kids! I would of loved to go to that camp as a kid!

What I would have added to this study was the reactions of the children seeing camp leaders disagreeing , even fighting among themselves . And the posable chaos that could erupt and the politics of it.

True story: Several hundred years ago, in the US, twenty Comanche children (all ten years old) ten boys and ten girls, were sent into the wilderness by their parents to do a two week survival test. When the children returned, they discovered to their horror and sorrow that their village had been attacked by an enemy tribe. And they were the sole survivors of their tribe. The twenty children buried the dead and performed the funeral rites for their deceased loved ones. Afterwards, they rebuilt their village a hundred or so yards away from where the village formerly stood. And they did everything as they had been taught by the adults to do and so when they were grown, their tribe survived. 😐

You can kinda see a bit of this phenomenon occur in fandoms sometimes. Especially big fandoms like Sonic and Star Wars. They got different in groups focused on liking and disliking different aspects of the franchise, but if something especially bad happens to the franchise, they can all come together with a common agreement on it. In the case of Star Wars, everyone can agree that the Holiday Special is weird af, and in the Sonic fandom, everyone can agree that Ken Penders is an asshole and wrote some pretty shoddy storylines for the Archie Sonic comics.

Sherif would later go on to be known by his more popular name: Emperor Palpatine

It’s always surreal seeing my home state being a feature in any video

There was an incident in 1966 where children were really lost on an island off the coast of Tonga without adult supervision for more than a year, and they organized a peaceful society and took care of each other while they waited for rescue. That's what you do when you're really in danger, as opposed to a sociological experiment or a summer camp where they were well aware that they would be fed and sheltered by adults. Lord of the Flies was a novel. It was a made-up story by a schoolmaster who maybe should have had a different profession. These incidents tell you far more about the nature of the researchers than of humanity in general.

Weird how you called it the “Armenian deportations” and not genocide 🤔

Great video, you just exposed how American politicians and news organizations work together to keep everyone divided. Experiments like this are what gave them the formula

Growing up in the area and going to Robber's Cave in Wilburton Regularly, I've always found this interesting it wasn't taught in school

One thing I cannot stress enough here. At that time, informed consent and research ethics weren't a thing. Look at things like the Milgram Experiment. Those two concepts are relatively rare in research. So, at the time this was conducted, this research was not considered unethical.

I always found the experiment to be a fascinating horror story since my middle school science and history teachers talked about it in separate occasions when I was looking at disturbing topics for both classes I felt it fit better into history class instead of science

I camped, played, and explored at Robber’s Cave and the lake next to it every summer throughout my childhood. Never heard this story.

This experiment is almost word for word like my experience with basic training in the Navy.

Armenian genocide, not "deportations"

Woodworking was a popular hobby. Knives were useful for camping, too.

A knife is not just a weapon it is a TOOL, children should be given access to things like this when they are still young and impressionable so that they can learn the difference -- before they get to the age where they start to make their own observations about the world. It should be used as an opportunity to learn responsibility, respect, and safety. It should not be given flippantly, it should come with an understanding that it will be taken away if misused, and the child should feel the honor of being entrusted with such an item.

I go to robbers cave all the time during the summer! It’s a great place to hike around

Thanks for the lovely video presentation. I found it very interesting how different your life in Britain is from mine in America. I was born in Vegas in the 90's and given my first pocket knife at 6 for camping tool purposes. Later, I won my first rifle in a raffle at 12 where my younger brother won his. I hunted rabbits and birds from that age in the desert, and got my license to hunt Antelope, Deer, and Elk in the state at age 14. My younger cousins aged 7-12 in the past 4 years all have begun pistol and rifle shooting. Our whole extended family enjoy hunts every year. It's interesting that one of the criticisms was of staff at a camp killing a snake being abnormal. Animal control is important for the safety of people and shooting ends up being the best way to carry it out in camp settings. I also noticed you called the Armenian Genocide a 'deportation' and I wonder if that's how they taught it in your schools. Finally, I had to relisten when you were talking about which city the kids were selected from because you said 'Oklahoma' which is a state in our country. I assume you mean Oklahoma City which is the name of the city within that state. These kinds of different perspectives and acceptance of opposite norms prove to me that conflict is innate to us.

I really enjoy your videos and found this one very interesting, if not surprising, it's pretty much normal human nature. My only confusion is in the title, "The Horror of..." While perhaps unethical by modern standards (though not of the time necessarily), I'd hardly call this a horror. Since I wasn't familiar with this incident, I didn't already know how it ended. I kept expecting it to end in the same manner as the Lord of the Flies (since you refer to it also). I expected somehow it got out of control, and one or more of the boys was killed, or at least injured, or some horrific accident happened during one the activities. But it sounded like the worst thing that happened was what normal kids do, fights, name calling, cabin-raids, sabotage, etc. And since it sounded like they pretty much all made friends at the end (instead of killing each other), I think the "horror" description is just absurd. When you introduced the knives as prizes, I thought surely that's foreshadowing, and some boy is going to get knifed by the end. But of course, nothing happened worse than a food-fight. Still, an interesting story, but hardly a "horror."

I knife is not a weapon it's a tool.

I would LOVE to see the 1953 group be made in to a movie! We need to see movies that show that groups that are manipulated against each other, realize that they real outsider are those doing the manipulating.

*10:17* Oh suuuure, the principals gave THEM permission... But when I show up with candy, a boy-sized cage, and a rope, they always say no. I'm starting to see a double-standard here 😡

Compared to the last to years of government induced conflict between the in/out groups, this was pretty mild.

Paused at 2 minutes (on the dot by luckey chance, I pressed pause and reaction to something he said and that's just where it happened to land)... I'm leaving this video with the intent to return after watching a couple of trailers and a short synopsis of Lord of the Flies, since I never seen it and I want to get the reference. The things I do to merely understand a reference.

Love how researchers do experiments to find a result that was obvious and self evident.

Short history lesson about Robbers Cave: I was born/grew up in Oklahoma and would go to Robbers Cave at least once a year! It is so beautiful! The caves are super cool especially the history. The history consists of Belle Star and the James-Younger Gang who were very famous outlaws. She, Jessie James and the rest of the gang were being chased by the law after stealing horses. While on the run they hid out in Robber’s Cave, thus it’s name. While searching for them they were seen running into one of the caves and were quickly followed. By the time the authorities got to the cave they all had disappeared! The particular cave they hid in was more akin to a natural amphitheater. The most bizarre part is there was no escape from that particular cavern. There was no entrance to the other caves meaning it was literally a solid rock wall. No one has ever figured out how they disappeared and escaped. I can’t remember how many people from the gang there were but if I remember correctly it may have been approx 6. At any rate she later passed away in Eufaula, Oklahoma in 1889 after being shot in the back by authorities. Sorry I digressed from the content of the video… I just think it is a really cool story and wanted to share. Everyone have a blessed day!

All this time having grown up in Oklahoma and visited Robbers' Cave plenty of times, this is the first I've heard of such influential work there.

😄Check out my NEW experiment HERE: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/iNJhpbirp9CcgJs.html

Superb reporting, challenging topic for science and history. Thanks!

Since when did John get so funny? Seriously this video had some humor to it and I enjoyed it.

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

11.00 Charlie says "always tell your mummy before you run off somewhere!" Now there's a blast from the past

What exactly is the horror in this experiment?

"Oh the 1950s when kids were given weapons" Going to state the obvious but a knife is more of a multifunctional tool. Got my first penknife when I was 5 and I was born in the 90s. The fact you could just go to a school and select a bunch of kids to be part of a study then ask the parents to pay for it is insane though. Especially as the parents knew it was a study. Also the price is pretty high when adjusted for inflation.

I love Robbers Cave! Been numerous times ❤

I've been to this place a few times(robbers cave)..its beautiful country thru there for sure!! It does get crazy busy there with campers on holidays,but it's really cool just being there surrounded by all the nature..