February 8, 2016 at 12:53 pm
Students from Texas Tech University build a house for Habitat for Humanity in 2010. (
In 1954, social psychologist Muzafer Sherif ran an experiment that could not be repeated today. Sherif was investigating prejudice and contesting Freud’s model of prejudice as an acting out of unresolved childhood conflicts.
At the Robbers Cave Boy Scout camp, Sherif wanted to test whether he could take a group of people, without any inherently hostile attitudes towards each other, and create conflict by introducing competition.
What Sherif found was not only that he could, but that he could also resolve the conflict if he introduced a shared goal. As I talk to people about politics and work for change, I always try to remember the importance of fighting with someone on something.
December 23, 2015 at 3:38 pm
Over the summer, I had a great conversation with an evangelical pastor about values that led to an experiment in trust.
A couple weeks ago, a group of us that have been kicking around some interfaith ideas decided to try this experiment. One of the things we talked about as a group was getting past some of the stereotypes that are thrown around so often about atheists and Christians.
From the Christian side, an example often heard is that Christians are “stupid” for believing in a God. From the atheist side, an example is that atheists are “immoral” because they don’t believe in God. There’s others, but you get the idea.
Our goal with this experiment was simply to see if we could use this exercise to help break down and get past these stereotypes and walls.
December 26, 2007 at 3:22 pm
While researching the Huckabee coverage, I thought I remembered seeing a brief blurb in the news a while back in which a senior Whitehouse official called the evangelical Christians nutjobs. Digging further, I found out that David Kuo, a former Bush speech-writer, wrote about this in his book Tempting Faith. […]
