Why do we pick sides?

0:00 Welcome to Philosophy is not boring by Kidopoly.com. I'm Mira. And I'm Finn! If you haven't already, tap follow wherever you're listening so you never miss an episode. Hey Mira, have you ever been on the playground and suddenly someone says, Everyone wearing sneakers against everyone wearing boots? Oh definitely.

0:21 And suddenly, for no logical reason, it feels like the most important team in the world. You start looking at the kids in boots like they are your absolute worst enemies. Yeah, but why do we do that? Why do we pick sides so incredibly fast, even over silly, meaningless things? That is exactly what we are exploring today.

0:43 How fast does it take for a human brain to decide us versus them? And more importantly, how do we stop it once it starts? We can stop it? Because sometimes those playground games get way too intense, and someone gets their feelings hurt. We absolutely can. But first, we have to look at a slightly mind-bending experiment that showed just how very little it takes to make human beings pick a side.

1:10 It really doesn't take much at all. So, what does it actually take? Like, do you need to be from the same town, or like the same sports team, or speak the same language? That's exactly what a researcher named Henry Tajfell wondered. In 1970, at the University of Bristol in England, he decided to test it.

1:32 What was his plan? Did he make them play a giant game of dodgeball? Not quite. He brought in a bunch of teenage schoolboys and wanted to find the absolute smallest, most trivial reason they would use to form a group. He wanted a reason that meant basically nothing. Like who likes chocolate versus vanilla ice cream?

1:52 Or who likes dogs more than cats? Close. He showed them paintings by two different abstract artists, one named Klee and one named Kandinsky, and simply asked which they liked better. That's it, just picking a painting. That doesn't seem like enough to make a team. Just picking a painting. He then told each boy, secretly, okay, you're in the Kandinsky group, or you're in the Klee group.

2:20 Did they get to meet their team and come up with a secret handshake? Nope. They never met their teammates. They didn't know who else was in their group, and they didn't know who was in the other group. They were totally alone in a little room. Wait, so they were on a team, but they didn't even know who they were playing with?

2:39 That is the weirdest team ever. Exactly! It was basically a ghost team, and Tajfel wanted to see, would they still act like a team and show loyalty to their group, even if the group meant absolutely nothing? Okay, so they are sitting alone in a room. What did they actually have to do for this experiment?

2:58 They were given booklets where they could hand out real rewards, like small amounts of money or points to other boys in the study. Oh, I love handing out points. Did they just give everyone a bunch of points so everybody wins? You would think so, but the only thing they knew about the boy they were giving points to was a code number, and whether he liked the same painter as them or the other one.

3:21 Oh, so it was like boy number four is a Clee fan and boy number seven is a Kandinsky fan. Exactly. And here is where it gets wild. The boys consistently gave more points to the kids who liked the same painter as them. I guess that makes sense. If I have a choice, I'll help my team. Even if my team is just kids who like this one painting I just saw.

3:45 But here's the part that will bend your brain a little. Sometimes they had to make a really tricky choice. They could pick option A, where both groups get a lot of points. Let's say 10 points for their team and 10 points for the other team. That sounds perfectly fair. Everyone gets 10 points, everyone goes home happy.

4:05 Or they could pick option B. In option B, their team only gets seven points, but the other team only gets one point. Wait, hold on. In option A, my team gets ten points. In option B, my team gets seven points. I want ten! Ten is more than seven. Right! But many of the boys picked option B. They actually chose to get fewer points for their own team, just to make sure the other team got even less.

4:35 Wait, what? They took a worse deal for themselves just to make sure they beat the other guys. But they don't even know these kids. I know. It shows that our brains are so deeply wired to be part of an us and to beat a them that we will literally give up good things just to win an imaginary competition.

4:53 That's kind of scary to think about. If we pick sides that fast over absolutely nothing, how do we ever get along in the real world? It is a little unsettling to sit with, but it's okay, because asking the hard question helps us find the answer. Which brings us to another famous study from 1954 at a summer camp in Oklahoma called Robber's Cave.

5:18 A summer camp? Did they have s'mores and campfires? Probably. A psychologist named Muzafer Sharif brought two groups of boys there. But we need to be really honest here. This study is heavily criticised today by scientists. Why? Did something bad happen to the kids? The camp staff actually secretly stirred up a lot of the rivalry between the two groups.

5:43 They were called the Eagles and the Rattlers, just to see what would happen. That doesn't seem right though. Grown-ups shouldn't try to make kids fight on purpose. You're completely right. It wasn't entirely fair, and it's why scientists today look at it carefully as just one finding, not perfect settled proof.

6:03 But it did teach us something really important about how to calm a rivalry down once it starts. How? Did they just tell them to sit in a circle and say sorry to each other? No, just talking didn't work at all. What worked was giving them a shared problem. A superordinate goal, meaning a problem they could only solve if they worked together.

6:26 Like what kind of problem? A giant math puzzle? Like when the camp's water supply broke down, or when a heavy truck carrying their food got stuck in a rut. Neither team could fix it alone. They had to combine their strength and pull the truck together. So because they both really wanted the food, they totally forgot about being eagles and rattlers.

6:48 Yes, a shared job can actually end a rivalry. When you have to pull the exact same rope to get something you both need, you stop worrying about who is on which team. That's actually really cool. But what does that mean for me? I don't think I'm going to be pulling any heavy food trucks out of the mud anytime soon.

7:09 Think about your own real life. Have you ever been in a really stubborn argument with a friend or a sibling where you're both just refusing to back down because you want to win? Yeah, definitely. Last week I argued with my sister for 20 minutes about who got the blue game controller. We didn't even play the game, we just argued until time was up.

7:32 Exactly. You got completely stuck in us versus them. Next time you're in an argument about what's fair, remember how incredibly fast we pick sides over nothing. If you can step back and find a shared goal, like, hey, if we clean up this room together, we can both go to the park faster. The rivalry often just melts away.

7:55 Oh, so finding a problem we both want to solve is like a secret cheat code to stop fighting. Exactly. And here's a mind-bending fun fact about Henry Targefell, the guy from the painting experiment. He actually survived World War II, which is a huge part of why he spent his whole life trying to understand how groups of people can turn against each other.

8:17 Wow! He wanted to understand something really heavy and dark, but he did it by studying something super simple, like abstract paintings. Right. He wanted to find the very root of the problem. And the boys at the robbers' cave camp. After they worked together to pull that truck, they ended up riding the exact same bus home.

8:39 One group even used their own prize money to buy milkshakes for everyone, including their old rivals. That is the absolute best ending ever. Milkshakes pretty much fix everything. Alright Finn, time for the quiz. Are you ready? Okay, I'm ready. Let's do this. First question. Who was the researcher that did the experiment with the paintings?

9:05 Next one. What year did the painting experiment take place? Question three. What was the name of the summer camp in Oklahoma? Here's number four. What was the name of the psychologist who ran the summer camp study? Last question. What did the camp study find is the best way to calm a rivalry? Great job!

9:40 Let's see how you did. The first answer is Henry Tajfell. For question two, it happened in 1970. Number three, the answer is Robber's Cave. Question four, that was Muzafer Sharif. And the final answer is giving them a shared problem to solve. You know, I'm definitely going to think differently the next time someone tells me to pick a team.

10:07 I don't want to give up my points just to be mean. Mean either. It's a great reminder that us and them is often just a trick of the brain. If you enjoyed thinking about this with us, please leave a five-star review. Yeah, just scroll down and tap the stars. It really helps. And don't forget to follow this show wherever you're listening.

10:27 Oh, and we have sister shows too. History and science is not boring, and maths is not boring. Go give those a listen and a follow as well. And if you want a shout out on the show or just want to say hi, email us at hello at kidopoly.com. Thanks for exploring with us today. See you next time on Philosophy is not boring.

10:49 Bye everyone.