The Lost Boys: Inside Muzafer Sherif's Robbers Cave Experiment

by Gina Perry

The fascinating true story of one of the most controversial psychological experiments of the modern era — a real-life Lord of the Flies.

Competition. Prejudice. Discrimination. Conflict.

In 1954, a group of boys attended a remote summer camp where they were split into two groups, and encouraged to bully, harass, and demonise each other. The results would make history as one of social psychology’s classic — and most controversial — studies: the Robbers Cave experiment.

Conducted at the height of the Cold War, officially the experiment had a happy ending: the boys reconciled, and psychologist Muzafer Sherif demonstrated that while hatred and violence are powerful forces, so too are cooperation and harmony. Today it is proffered as proof that under the right conditions warring groups can make peace. Yet the true story of the experiments is far more complex, and more chilling.

In The Lost Boys, Gina Perry explores the experiment and its consequences, tracing the story of Sherif, a troubled outsider who struggled to craft an experiment that would vanquish his personal demons. Drawing on archival material and new interviews, Perry pieces together a story of drama, mutiny, and intrigue that has never been told before.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Science, History, Biography, Historical, True Crime

384 pages, Paperback

Published April 12, 2018

Reviews

[Bookread2day · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must say how very well written this story is. I liked this story of how social psychology's studies the Robbers Cave experiment. Social psychologists Muzafer Sherif disguised himself as the camp care taker taking down notes on eleven year old boys being brutal to each other. A group of boys attend a remote summer camp, they were split into two groups and made to bully any harass each other. During a fight a boy named Red produced a knife with them having to be pulled apart.

[Betsy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to divide my opinion of this book into two parts. First, there is the story of Sherif's experiments. Second, there is the story of Sherif himself.

I was engaged and interested during the first part of the book. Horrified and distraught at how the boys were thrust into something unawares, and how this experience must have changed their lives.

The second part of the book, though, I found a bit tedious. Maybe it was because I didn't care to learn about the man who orchestrated this massive experiment, or maybe it was because the author herself struggled to come to any conclusions as to what exactly Sherif was hoping to prove.

I made it through the whole book, but personally found myself disengaged when it came to the second part. Maybe this book, in its entirety, would be of interest to someone studying the history of social psychology. Or maybe I just was looking for something more of a memoir, an unravelling of the mystery that was shrouded over the experiences these boys had at Sherif's experimental camp.

But then, it is difficult to understand someone's motivations when all you have to go on is documents from their past.... Sherif was deceased when the author began her research, and not many knew about his childhood history. Maybe it was just the switch to making conjectures that was problematic for me.

Overall, I appreciated this book, but wouldn't have minded if the author had condensed the second part into fewer chapters.

[Camille McCarthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thorough book on a classic psychology experiment done in the 50's to supposedly show how groups of otherwise normal boys would become violent over coveted limited resources but once they were faced with a problem where they had to work together, their animosity would disappear.
The author does a lot of research, going through the field notes for this study and also previous studies, one of which was marked a "failure" because the boys did not turn on each other even when goaded and manipulated by the researchers and actually ended up guessing that the 'camp staff' was actually trying to get them to fight each other. Perry tracks down several of the boys from the experiments, none of whom knew they were part of an experiment - they just remember a strange summer camp. Some of them remember it being strange and a sort of dark experience, whereas others seem to remember it with fondness. Perry also talks to several of the researchers, the ones that were still alive, some of whom feel bad about the ethical implications of running experiments on children without their consent, others who feel that it was a successful experiment and are still pleased with the results.
Several people throughout the book point out that this experiment really doesn't seem all that scientific, including the author, and I have to agree with them. If you are doing an experiment, you can't be manipulating people because they are not doing what you hypothesized they would do, and you can't pretend the experiment was a failure just because it didn't turn out the way you hoped.
The most interesting part of the book for me was the third section, which was about Musafer Sherif himself, who came up with the experiment and led the team. He was Turkish and had experienced a lot of ethnic conflicts in his life, and became a Marxist as an adult but was kicked out of Turkey (after being arrested) as a result of his leftist politics. He wanted to show that humans are inherently good, and only divide themselves up into warring factions when they are faced with limited resources. He also wanted to show that facing a common problem would force groups to work together and create peace. It seems as though he was well-meaning, but that his interpretation of these ideas into an experimental form was completely unscientific and ridiculously oversimplified. Also, he had un-diagnosed bipolar disorder, which made him an irritating person to work with until he finally got medical treatment decades later. I'm sure this also affected the amount of pressure he put on his staff, who therefore put even more pressure on the boys to act violently towards the other team. Interestingly, he was an 'illegal alien' for much of his time in the US, yet he was still able to hold a university position and faced zero consequences except that he didn't have a passport so he couldn't leave the country. However, he wasn't harassed every time he left the house, forced to show papers, or sent to a holding cell or detention center simply for being in the country 'illegally.'
Even though this experiment doesn't really show what he wanted it to show, I think it does show some important things for humans. The boys were acting out because they were confused, since the adults around them weren't taking charge and weren't helping them. They had been brought up to respect adults and to go to them for help when they needed something. Towards the end of the trip, they had realized the adults weren't going to help them, so one group expelled their problem member and only let him back in when he could follow the rules of respect they had created for their team. To me, this reminds me of today, when we are looking towards our elected leaders and people of authority for some leadership regarding the enormous problems we face, such as climate change, overabundance of plastics, and the destruction of ecosystems, but they are not really helping - in fact, much like the researchers in the study, they are still busy manipulating everyone for their own gain, which is not helping the situation at all. Like the boys, we must start to fend for ourselves, create mutual aid networks, and figure out our own rules for what our society will look like, because we cannot depend on them at this late stage. We are facing a problem that requires cooperation, and hopefully that will end up bringing the people of the world together, even if our leaders are still trying to keep us at war for nothing.

[Jarred · Rating 1 out of 5]

For a long time as I was reading this book I was set on 2 stars, the.n it became a cointoss between a 1 star and a 2 star, and finally settled on a 1 star. Here’s why:
What I wanted from this book was an overview or story of the actual experiment, with a detailed explanation of the psychological theory and concepts (especially since the author is a psychologist and social historian), and a commentary on the ethics of the experiments.
What I would have accepted/settled for was a summary of the study, a background on sharif, historical context of the era the research was done in and how it applied to the world beyond the experiment, or really anything that didn’t feel like the author using this experiment as a thin veil to cover their travels around the world and desire to talk about their own experiences instead of the actual subject of the book.
What I got was a meandering memoir of the author attempting research into the topic and why it was hard to put this book together. This meant that the narrative approach they chose to use was continually interrupted by the author’s first person perspective and their imagining of what happened rather than telling me what actually happened, and then an abrupt change in the middle of the book, where we will abandon the experiment that’s supposed to be the core of this book and try and do a biography of Muzafer Sherif, except there will be chapters describing the author’s trip to Turkey where they found nothing of worth and no real records of his youth, and then maybe a brief chapter or two of relevant info about Sherif’s career, and then a jarring ending where the author bluntly stated they don’t really know what to make of any of this, nor do they know what the reader should take away from this experience.
I wanted to like this book. I was predisposed to liking it when I picked it up, so much that when I realized it was never going to be what I wanted I still wanted to give it 2 stars, and then it just got worse. Halfway through this book I remarked to a friend “I wish this had been written by anyone else.” Settling on a 1 star review was due mostly to the author’s shortcomings rather than the subject of the book.

[Inna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit too melodramatic and fictionalised, but the story itself and the research behind it are amazing.

[Scribe Publications]

A fascinating and finely written study of one of the best-known social experiments of the twentieth century. Through archive research and interviews with participants, Gina Perry uses her investigative flair to reconstruct the context, characters, and stakes of this strange piece of history.
Darian Leader, Author of What Is Madness?

When the first punch is thrown in the opening chapter, you know you’re in for a wild ride. In The Lost Boys, academic sleuth Gina Perry investigates the back story of a real-life Lord of the Flies study of human behaviour at a summer camp. The fascinating journey — which takes us through the history of psychology, Turkey, and even American summer camps — reads more like a detective novel than a psychological history book.
Susannah Cahalan, Author of The New York Times bestseller Brian on Fire

In The Lost Boys, Gina Perry has created a meticulously-researched, skilfully crafted account of a decades-old experiment that still casts a shadow over the lives of its subjects. This is a fascinating, disturbing and utterly compelling cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific obsession.
Michael Brooks, Author of The Quantum Astrologer's Handbook

In The Lost Boys, Gina Perry returns to the terrain of morally dubious and manipulative psychological experiments.’
The Saturday Age

Fascinating … excellent.
Weekend Australian

Intriguing… Written in an engaging style, it will fascinate both academics and casual readers alike.
Canberra Weekly

Enthralling.
Australian Book Review

[An] excellent piece of non-fiction interrogating one of the most celebrated pieces of psychological research of the mid-20th century.
Herald Sun

An engrossing expose of the Robbers Cave experiment, a classic study in social psychology, was also a fine historical recreation.
Gideon Haigh, ABR’s ‘Books of the Year 2018’

A clear-eyed assessment of a significant chapter in the history of psychology and social science.
Kirkus Reviews

Perry writes about Sherif’s complicated past, why he was able to carry out the test, and how the boys banded against each other at the camp. But she also digs into the theory behind it, which feels spookily relevant now: the idea that we easily pick sides based on arbitrary circumstances, and that can lead to violence.
Outside Magazine, The Best New Books of March

[Perry’s] analysis of Sherif’s scientific process benefits from a distance, seeing revelations that Sherif and his staff were too close to see. It was enthralling and appalling at the same time.
RuthAlice Anderson, Tonstant Weader

This brilliant reexamination of a study that resonates today should interest scholars as well as undergraduate and graduate psychology students.
Library Journal

In assessing the ostensible success of the experiment and the work of Sherif, who emerges as an extremely difficult man, arrogant and conceited, Perry has done prodigious research.
Booklist

[This] long profile of him [Sherif], and description of his experiment, will likely remain unsurpassed.
Publishers Weekly

[Michael Pryor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful, detailed, thoughtful.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an intriguing and highly critical look at Muzafer Sherif's experiments into social cohesion. It's well researched, and engagingly written. Where it fell down for me was that Sherif's experiments weren't actually that engaging, due to being pretty crap. The second half of the book, which follows Sherif's life, is the section which has stayed with me.
Perry has provided a strong debunking of the Sherif myth that he showed something significant. She deconstructs how he created a scripted scenario for his experiments, manipulating events to unfold just as planned. Sherif believes that boys divided into competitive groups will develop violent antagonism, which can then be resolved in they all face a common threat, and sets up a summer camp to prove it. Frustratingly to him, this isn't always successful as the boys don't follow the antagonistic script easily, but rather than learn from how they do behave, the experimenters simply scramble to get the whole thing "back on track", by vandalising equipment, rigging the score and flat out agitating in conversation. The irony, as Perry points out, is that the study into how groups develop dynamics ignores the dominant division in the camps between staff and the boys, and fails to look at how the boys respond to the irresponsible and unpredictable behaviour of the adults. Perry also strips back the ethical failures here - worst in not getting anything remotely resembling informed consent - and the lack of follow up to ensure the boys are ok. Many of the boys she tracks down were still unaware - 50 years later - that the camp was an experiment. There is a certain pleasure in reading about how the boys thwart the experiment, both by maintaining strong empathy with each other, and by working out the adults are losing the plot. But in the end, this is just too staged to provide insight into much. The scholarship is this section is outstanding, and Perry goes a long way to a deserved tarnishing of the reputation of a study still cited more than, apparently, it should be. But as a tale it fell a little flat.
Sherif dominates the first half of the book as a difficult, unlikeable figure full of arrogance and careless with others. The second half looks at his life, and it is here that Perry's story became compelling to me. She tracks through terrible history, exploring how Sherif spent a childhood in a multicultural empire, his adolescence in bloody violence as that society ripped into ethnically divided states, with Sherif at the center of the violence in Smyrna, site of massacre after massacre carried out by people only recently living in harmony. He morphs from Turkish nationalist to Marxist world citizen, helped to some extent by the Black movement in the United States. All this explains a great deal about both his determination to prove that creating artificial divisions can lead to violence. It is also a reminder that no matter how heartwarming the elements of the boys continuing to empathise with each other in the experiments are, it just proves that Sherif's explanation about the cause was wrong (or at least, much too simplistic). It doesn't make what he was trying to explain go away. These questions, what conditions create harmonious or antagonistic behaviour, what can lead a group of people to machete another to death, are essential to creating a peaceful future. It's just a shame this doesn't really contribute much to that discussion.

[Tonstant Weader · Rating 4 out of 5]

After World War II there was tremendous urgency around finding explanations for what happened in Germany. How could a modern society lose itself in hate and violence, committing genocide on a scale and efficiency unimagined before? One of those who attempted to answer that question was Muzafer Sherif. To do so, he endeavored to explore how a group forms cohesion and comes to oppose and even hate another group and discover if they could be brought back together. It all sounds so noble until you realize the group he is experimenting on are twelve-year-old boys, isolating them at summer camps where his counselors incited competition and rivalry to create division. This is all explored in great detail in Gina Perry’s The Lost Boys.

The history of medicine and psychology is full of experiments that baffle a modern person, wondering how was this allowed to happen, but then I wonder what we are allowing to happen now. I can understand the importance of understanding how we form distinct groups and how in-group and out-group rivalries can lead us to strategies to make a more cooperative and kinder world. Perry does an excellent job of rooting Sherif’s passion for exploring this in his past experience in the volatile history of Turkey during the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Ataturk.

The experiments are recounted in fascinating detail, drawing from recordings and notes from the experiments. Hidden microphones captured so much more. The assistants who functioned as camp staff wrote detailed daily reports that revealed far more than they may have realized as they described the same situations very differently. Perry is painstaking in demonstrating that perhaps the real experiment should have been the process of the counselors forming groups and clashing and coming together. The experiments took place with two groups of children, the final one at Robbers Cave in Oklahoma which give them their name, The Robbers Cave Experiment.

The Lost Boys is an extraordinary book. Perry has access to audio recordings of the experiment, reports, and the writings of Sherif to go through to create a history of extraordinary immediacy. Her analysis of Sherif’s scientific process benefits from a distance, seeing revelations that Sherif and his staff were too close to see. It was enthralling and appalling at the same time. I thought Perry’s exploration of his youth in Turkey was weaker, in part because she seemed too diffident about what happened in Turkey. She describes the expulsion of the Armenians and honestly reports they were marched into the desert and killed, but doesn’t use the word genocide. It was a weakness that asserted itself in Turkey where she was reluctant to ask questions about Sherif for fear of offending the government. However, other than that, I thought the book was excellent.

I received a review copy of The Lost Boys from the publisher. It will be released on April 2nd.

The Lost Boys at Scribe Publications via Consortium Book Sales and Distribution
Gina Perry author site


https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpre...

[Florent Diverchy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very complete research about Muzafer Sherif famous experiment.
The book is made up three parts:
- The search for info about the experiments
- The first failed experiment
- The Robbers Cave experiment self
- An investigation into the youth and later years of Muzafer Sherif life.

Part 1 is an interesting introduction.
Part 2 and 3 are really interesting and are the core of the book.
Really interesting to see how the experiments were designed, executed, and certainly (unconsciously?) biased.
Part 4 got me bored, as I was not interested in Sherif's character. But you can't deny the research work that as been done by Gina.

Final reader rating:
4 stars for the first parts.
2 stars for the SHerif investigation

[Tory · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first part -- about the actual Robbers Cave experiment -- was interesting and compelling, but I was left feeling like I wasn't sure what the takeaway was. I hoped that the rest of the book would explain more, but instead, it narrated Sherif's life (imo, tediously, probably because I just didn't much care about him). I still never quite reached understanding, as everything's left open-ended because I also don't think the author knew exactly where she was going with it. It's hard to make a point if you don't know what the point is! (There were also a few incredibly shaky/speculative connections made by the author that reminded me of some desperate, grasping-at-straws term papers I've written in my time. You can't bullshit a bullshitter!)

[Ariel Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book because Robber's Cave is one of my favorite places in my home state. I was fascinated that I had never heard of this experiment, and yet an author from Australia found it interesting enough to investigate. A combination of social psychology and history, the book has interesting elements of both, but at one point it seemed like the author was reaching for any additional historical points just to meet a page minimum. Contrary to other reviews, I did find the look into Sherif's life story as relevant, though that section could definitely have been condensed.

[Yofish · Rating 3 out of 5]

This really should have been better, and I’m not sure why it wasn’t.

I had only vaguely heard of the Robbers Cave experiment, so this seemed like a good way to learn more. The book is broken into three parts (basically): an experiment like Robbers Cave, conducted a year earlier that didn’t quite work as desired; what actually happened in Robber’s Cave State Park in 1954; a quick biography of Muzafer Sherif. The last was the weakest, and I didn’t really think belonged in the book. I suppose I learned something about the history of Turkey in the early 20th century. (Which, to be fair, had a whole lot of stuff going on.) But the author tried a little too hard to show that this early life experience really affected Sherif’s theories and experiments.

The first two parts were what I thought I had signed up for. The problem (for me) is that there was more detail in what I wasn’t interested in about the experiments, and less about what I am interested in. Maybe there’s no way to fix this, as the events happened 60-ish years before the author’s research; the only surviving witnesses just don’t remember things well enough, and the official recounting is kinda biased.

She spent too much time talking about her own involvement---things like “I imagine him leaning against a tree, witnessing the conflict, smiling at how it was going just as he had hoped.” It made the book feel more like a magazine piece, and seemed unnecessary.

I was surprised that she never explicitly said something like “I was able to find and interview x of the boys; I was unable to find y of the boys; z of the boys refused to talk to me; and 24-x-y-z are dead.” Or something like that.

I also would have appreciated a little history of how the experiment is/was viewed by the community. (Maybe she thought that was so obvious it wasn’t worth it?) Heck, she didn’t even really define “social psychology” despite all the talk about how the Sherifs were excited about it and devoted their lives to it and looked down on other sub-specialties.

Finally, I was kind of surprised that there were basically no pictures in the book. Of the kids (either as kids or as adults), or the locations, or anything. Maybe because the version I read was in paperback?

[Helen Corton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a well researched account and discussion of some experiments undertaken in the early 1950s in America by a social psychologist called Muzafer Sherif.
The first part looks at an initial experiment, where 24 boys previously unknown to each other were brought together for a summer camp type experience. The group bonded, then separated and came back together again, so the researchers could look at conflict and peace keeping as well as the social relations within groups, herd mentality and social pressure.
Then the second part goes into the main experiment at Robbers Cave, largely built on ideas and developments from the first study, but more deliberately engineered to bring out group rivalry and conflict.
Finally the research is put into context and we learn of Sherif’s personal history and development from a childhood in changing Turkey lead to his interests in these ideas and how his life in the worst part of the Cold War in America allow him to devise the theories he did, as well as a discussion of the implications of the study for other groups and wider society.
Largely hidden from the sociological literature today, on his death the family donated his research to the archives of the university Gina Parry was working in, culminating in her dedicating herself to this book. My background is in social science and it wasn’t something I remember on my course, despite its cultural links and comparisons to Lord of the Flies and Stanley Milgram. Milgram's obedience experiments are widely criticised for the dubious ethics and deception of the participants which is also a feature of the Muzafer studies, in the way that boys were recruited and studied without consent from them or their parents, where there was a manipulation of situations to encourage conflict that could potentially put them in physical danger and psychological harm. These aspects of the book were the most interesting for me, especially in understanding where social psychology was at these times and how it has changed, especially as the discussion isn’t too dense and are enjoyable for the newcomer to the ideas rather than seeming academic and overly complex, it would also suit someone who wanted it for these purposes as the account and references are thorough.
Overall I found these studies painted a positive picture of human groups, and remind us that while fighting, war and conflict are deep rooted in humanity, just as important are group bonds, being a good sport and pulling together. My criticism would be the focus of the study – boys only, in a new environment, of a certain age and characteristics for only a few weeks mean it wouldn’t translate well into looking at wider society, I was glad Gina Perry brought these studies to light for me and retold them with accuracy and in a readable form.

[Natalie Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

This revealed valuable insight on social psychology experiments in the 1950s! I found it absolutely fascinating, and it is clear that Gina Perry conducted in-depth research. She fabricates some of the missing details, but nothing to the point of falsities.
Ultimately, this book suffers from a lack of content. Most of the boys don't remember / aren't affected by the experiments. There isn't a lot of information on Muzafer Sherif. Most of the people who would have remembered or been affected by the experiments are dead or old. The second half of the book is mostly a history lesson on Europe in the early 1900s and less insight on the Robbers Cave Experiment. This could be fixed if she sat down and focused on what the book was about. Instead, the second half of the book is a nebulous web of information relating to Muzafer Sherif. I'm not sure if any conclusions were reached.
I'd recommend this if you are interested in social psychology. It's definitely an interesting book, just too long and unfocused.

[Cathy Maguire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found Perry's previous book on the Milgrim experiment so engaging when I picked it up to look at in a bookshop I hardly noticed I'd read 20pages of it before I remembered where I was.
Found this book more difficult to begin but once the story of the different experiments began I was once again enthralled. However when looking into the background of the psychologist my interest waned for several chapters until close to the end when examining his psyche around the time of his research.
She humanises those involved in the experiment while still presenting both sides of the story.
Would love to see her take on the Stanford prison experiment.

[Kristin Flora · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a trained social psychologist this book shed light on information I never encountered in my studies. For me, the most compelling part was the backstory into Sherif and his relationships with his graduate students and his wife. I definitely felt like I finished having a more well-rounded understanding of context as it relates to this research, including the political climate in the US.

Some parts were hard to follow, as the author jumps between the various studies and drills down to individual participants and reunions with those participants, but overall a good read for those interested in psychology.

[Andrew Mcneill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gina Perry once again offers an engrossing insight into one of the most famous social psychology experiments of all time. Outlining the boys' camp studies, the experience of the boys, and the life of Muzafer Sherif, she situates the experiments in the context of Sherif's life where they take on new significance.

[Rebekah Crain · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had thought this might be a very interesting read, but as it took me this long to get through it I think it's safe to say that it wasn't. Not for me anyways. I found the first 2/3 of the book mildly diverting, but when the subject matter changed from the experiments to Muzafer's background things started to get incredibly slow going for this girl. ⭐⭐⭐

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at the psychosocial experimentation undertaken on young American boys in the early 1950s by Muzafer Sherif and a group of his graduate students. Gina Perry has produced an extremely well researched and thoroughly readable book.

[Malcolm Frawley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This sounded really interesting on the back cover blurb, & I gave it 234 pages, but it never grabbed me. With 200 books in my to-read pile it had already taken up too much of my reading time, so I put it aside.

[Mancman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’d never heard of the subject, or his experiments, but was intrigued by the blurb.
The book explores not only the social psychology experiments he carried out, but attempts to understand his motivations.
This added much more depth to the story.

[Pat Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really well written, interesting piece of history.

[Virginia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good supplement to the version of this story that appears in textbooks. The truth, of course, is always more complicated than the textbook version.

[Jadyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring as hell. Forced myself to finish it. Should’ve Dnf it.