The Lost Boys by Gina Perry

Author:Gina Perry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: PSY031000, BIO021000, BIO015000, SCI000000, PSY040000, FAM013000
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Published: 2018-04-16T04:00:00+00:00

9

Sweet Harmony

Carolyn wrote excitedly to Sherif on the first day of the final stage of the experiment, telling him how tempted she had been to call. ‘According to schedule you must be through with fighting (experimentally) and heading towards sweet harmony!’

If only it were that easy.

Before the final stage could begin, Sherif wanted to gather hard data to support his anecdotal evidence that the experiment was working by bringing both groups together to test their attitudes to each other. Bob Hood told the Rattlers he’d made a bet with Jack White that the Rattlers were a better team than the Eagles in certain skills tests. But by now the Rattlers didn’t want anything to do with the others, and refused to participate. In desperation, Hood promised his group $5.00 if they took part. In a bean-tossing competition where the boys had to estimate how well their group did in comparison to the others, each group was much more positive about its own members and regarded themselves as superior in skill to the other team.

In the published version of the study, the men portray the final week of the camp as an epic struggle to overcome the aggression and fighting between the two groups of boys. They described how the boys, waiting for meals outside the mess hall, abused one another, and once inside at the table, ‘After eating for a while, someone threw something, and the fight was on. The fight consisted of throwing rolls, napkins rolled in a ball, mashed potatoes, etc. accompanied by yelling the standardized unflattering words at each other.’ Name-calling and abuse were a feature of every interaction, according to the book. And when things went wrong, the other group generally got the blame: ‘In an early morning swim … the Eagles had discovered their flag in the water, burned the previous evening by the Rattlers. Upon making this discovery, they denounced the Rattlers as “dirty bums”, and accused them … of throwing rocks in their creek (because one of them stubbed his toes a number of times during the swim).’

It makes for uncomfortable reading. Each time the two groups came into contact, whether it was to eat a meal or watch a movie, the men made notes on how they acted, where they sat, and the overall mood between them.

‘We were trying to show just being together doesn’t create peace. You need more than that,’ OJ said.

For the first day, mealtimes were bedlam. Boys on both sides ‘yelled invectives’ and threw food, the book says, while the men hid outside and took notes. On the second day, after joint meals in the mess hall, Ida the cook (who was wife of the camp’s permanent caretaker, Dave Bloxham) and her sister (who worked as kitchenhand) threatened to quit. They were ‘conservative churchgoing people’, OJ said. ‘She was so bothered by the misbehaviour of the boys, who were throwing food at the other group and cursing each other. The food fights and bad names really bothered the ladies, and they chided Sherif and I for allowing the boys to behave that way,’ OJ said.

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