Muzafer Sherif facts for kids

Muzafer Sherif (born Muzaffer Şerif Başoğlu; July 29, 1906 – October 16, 1988) was a Turkish-American social psychologist. He helped create important ideas like social judgment theory and realistic conflict theory.

Sherif was a key person in modern social psychology. He created special ways to understand how people act in groups. He studied things like social norms (unspoken rules) and how groups can have conflicts. Many of his ideas are now basic parts of social psychology.

Life and Education

Early Life and Schooling

Muzafer Sherif grew up in a well-off family with five children. He was the second oldest. He went to elementary school in Ödemiş for six years. Then he attended Izmir International College, finishing in 1926.

Sherif earned his master's degree from Istanbul University in 1928. While there, he supported modernizing Turkey. He became interested in how people's goals guide their actions.

Sherif lived through big historical events as a child. These included wars and changes in his home country. Izmir, where he went to college, was occupied by soldiers for several years.

Studying in America and Europe

Sherif came to America during the Great Depression. He earned another master's degree from Harvard University. His teachers included famous psychologists like Gordon Allport.

In 1932, he visited Berlin as the Nazi Party was rising. He attended lectures on Gestalt psychology. Sherif planned to use these ideas for a new theory about how we see the social world.

He returned to the U.S. in 1933. He later earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1935. After this, Sherif worked at Ankara University in Turkey.

A picture of Ankara University in 1937, where Sherif published some of his early works.

Moving to the U.S. Permanently

In 1945, Sherif married Carolyn Wood. They worked together on many important projects for years. They wrote scholarly books and a textbook together. They had three daughters: Ann, Sue, and Joan.

In 1947, he published his first book, The Psychology of Ego Involvements. He compared different societies in this book. He showed how different values come from different social backgrounds.

Sherif moved back to America for good in 1945. He worked at Princeton University. Later, he taught at Yale University, the University of Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania State University.

Later Life and Legacy

Muzafer Sherif passed away on October 16, 1988, in Fairbanks, Alaska. He was 82 years old.

Key Contributions to Psychology

Sherif made many important contributions to social psychology. He helped develop theories and research methods. He wrote over 60 articles and 24 books. Much of his research was done with his wife, Carolyn Wood Sherif.

How Groups Shape Our Views: Autokinetic Effect

Sherif's early work looked at how social groups influence what we see. His famous "autokinetic effect" experiments showed this.

Imagine a completely dark room with only a tiny dot of light on a wall. After a while, the dot seems to move. This is an optical illusion because there's no other reference point.

In Sherif's experiment, three people would watch the light together. They were asked to say out loud how far the dot moved. Over time, each group naturally agreed on an estimate. Some groups thought it moved a lot, some a little, and some in between. The amazing part was that each group created its own "social norm" for how much the light moved. This happened without them even talking about it directly.

A week later, participants were tested alone. They still gave the same estimate their group had agreed upon. This showed that the group's influence wasn't just about fitting in. They had actually changed how they saw the world. This experiment proved that our social surroundings can truly affect our personal perceptions.

Understanding Group Conflict: Robbers Cave Experiment

In 1961, Sherif and Carolyn Wood Sherif developed realistic conflict theory. This theory explains that conflict, negative feelings, and stereotypes between groups happen when they compete for resources. This idea came partly from the 1954 Robbers Cave experiment.

The Robbers Cave Study

The 1954 experiment involved 22 boys, about 11 years old. They were all healthy and had good school performance. They went to a special summer camp in Oklahoma called Robbers Cave State Park. The boys didn't know each other before the camp. The remote location helped researchers study group behavior without outside influences.

The researchers acted as camp counselors. They divided the boys into two groups. Each group stayed in cabins far from the other.

• Phase 1: Forming Groups

During the first week, the groups didn't know about each other. The boys in each group bonded by doing activities together, like hiking and swimming. They chose names for their groups: "The Eagles" and "The Rattlers." They even put these names on their shirts and flags. In this phase, the boys became attached to their own group. They developed social rules and leaders emerged.

• Phase 2: Group Conflict

Next, the groups met each other. Researchers set up a four-day competition with prizes for the winners. Soon, prejudice (negative feelings) started between the two groups. At first, it was just name-calling. But as the competition went on, it got worse. One group burned the other's flag, and another ransacked a cabin. The groups became so aggressive that the researchers had to separate them.

After a two-day break, the boys were asked to describe both groups. They described their own group very positively and the other group very negatively.

• Phase 3: Reducing Conflict

The researchers then tried to reduce the prejudice. Simply having the groups spend more time together actually made things worse. However, when the groups had to work together on "superordinate goals," the prejudice eased. Superordinate goals are common goals that require both groups to cooperate to achieve them. This showed that working together on shared goals is much more effective at reducing conflict than just talking or being near each other.

Contributions to Sociology

Sherif's social judgment theory looks at how we understand new ideas based on our existing beliefs. When we hear a new idea, we compare it to what we already think.

Sherif explained that people have three "latitudes" or zones for ideas:

• Latitude of Acceptance: Ideas we find reasonable and acceptable.
• Latitude of Rejection: Ideas we strongly disagree with and find unacceptable.
• Latitude of Non-commitment: Ideas we don't feel strongly about, neither accepting nor rejecting them.

If an issue is very important to someone (high "ego involvement"), they will have a small latitude of non-commitment. They will also have a large latitude of rejection for opposing ideas. Sherif also found that sometimes people see ideas as more different or more similar than they actually are. The "boomerang effect" happens when a message makes someone's beliefs change in the opposite direction of what the message intended.

Books and Publications

During his career, Sherif wrote or co-wrote 24 books and over 60 articles. These works are still important in psychology today.

Early Works and Collaborations

From 1937 to 1944, Sherif set up a small lab at Ankara University. There, he and his students translated many psychology works into Turkish.

After returning to the United States in 1945, he joined Princeton University. He worked with Hadley Cantril on The Psychology of Ego-Involvements, published in 1947.

From 1947 to 1949, Sherif was a research fellow at Yale University. Here, he began a long partnership with Carl Hovland. They wrote many influential papers and a book, Social Judgement: Assimilation and Contrast Effects in Communication and Attitude Change, published in 1961.

Productive Years in Oklahoma

In 1949, Sherif moved to Oklahoma. He became a professor and director of the Institute of Group Relations, which he founded in 1952. This was a very productive time for him. He wrote 12 books and 43 research articles on topics like attitudes and group behavior.

He organized seminars at Oklahoma and later published five books based on the papers from these seminars. Some well-known books include Group in Harmony and Tension (with his wife Carolyn Sherif) and Reference Groups: An Exploration Into Conformity and Deviation of Adolescents (also with Carolyn Sherif).

His most famous work from his time in Oklahoma is Inter-group Conflict and Cooperation: The Robber's Cave Experiment. This was first shared as a report in 1954 and later published as a book in 1988.

Later Years at Penn State

In 1966, Sherif and his wife moved to Pennsylvania State University. He became a Sociology Professor. During this time, he wrote or co-edited five more books with his wife, Carolyn. These included Group Conflict and Cooperation and a revised edition of their textbook, Social Psychology.

See also

In Spanish: Muzafer Sherif para niños

Images for kids

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  A picture of Ankara University in 1937, where Sherif published some of his early works.