Poll Workers, Polarization, and the Robbers Cave Experiment

Earlier this week, I spent a long, long day—from 5:30 a.m. until 8:20 p.m.—as a poll worker.

As always, I came home exhausted, feeling virtuous, civic-minded, and happy. I always have a great time. That's why I’ve worked every election for the last decade. I even schedule my classes so I can do it.

Part of it is that I enjoy the work. I like greeting my neighbors, looking up the addresses of students excited to be voting for the first time, and watching "children" who are senior citizens carefully guiding their parents through the lines.

But most of it is working with the other poll workers. That’s interesting because, like all polling places in Ohio, poll workers are carefully matched. Half of us are registered Democrats. Half of us are registered Republicans. All of us are committed. To be a poll worker, you can't switch parties, and you have to vote every election.

Not only is the polling place balanced, but each station is as well. Every station where we check IDs and print ballots is staffed by a Republican and a Democrat. Every station scans ballots. Every help desk. The manager and assistant manager. Even the folks wiping down the machines and handing out the styluses.

We aren’t allowed to discuss politics, but our badges are coded so we can tell party affiliation with a glance. We have to be able to tell so we know we are always working with a partner of the other party.

Yet despite the fact that we are interested in politics, always vote, and live in a highly polarized time in a highly polarized county, we get along—chatting about kids, horses, dogs, and movies for almost 15 long hours.

Walking home, I was reminded of the Robbers Cave experiment.

The Robbers Cave Experiment

In 1954, Muzafer Sherif created one of the most famous field experiments in social psychology.

Sherif (1906-1988) was born in Turkey. He studied in the United States during the 1930s and returned permanently after World War II. His youth was heavily affected by wars, including the Italo-Turkish War, the Balkan Wars, World War I, the Armenian genocide, and occupation by both Greek and Turkish soldiers during the Turkish War of Independence. Although he studied perceptual phenomena as a graduate student, his most influential work was on social conflict.

The Robbers Cave experiment involved 22 11-year-old boys. Demographically, the boys were quite similar to one another: white, Protestant, with average to good school performance and intelligence. They showed no sign of mental illness and did not know one another.

The boys were recruited to attend a summer camp with the promise that they would help researchers learn more about cooperation. As was not atypical of experimental science of that era, none of the boys or their parents were told the nature of the study Sherif had planned,

Over the course of several weeks, Sherif and his colleagues acted as camp staff and counselors (Sherif himself posed as a janitor). First, they divided the boys into two groups: the Eagles and the Rattlers. The "counselors" built strong in-group identification among the boys through the kinds of activities that make outdoor camps fun: swimming, hiking, etc.

Next, the counselors created tension between the groups by setting up competitions with valued prizes. The counselors built up in-group identification and encouraged the boys to denigrate the out-group. Over four days, the boys moved from verbal insults to destroying the property of their "enemies."

In the final phase of the study, Sherif diffused the powerful tension between the groups. Mere exposure to each other just made things worse; it provided more opportunities for hostility and aggression. What resolved the conflict was shared purpose. Specifically, the counselors created a "crisis" that required the two groups to work together. After working together to face a shared threat, barriers between the groups collapsed.

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Poll Workers Common Goal

Like Sherif’s campers, poll workers are quite similar to one another. We tend to be older, mostly women and natural volunteers. You’d recognize us anywhere. We are the folks who run the church dinners, judge 4H dog shows, organize snacks for soccer teams, and run the food bank. We care about our country.

We vote (it’s a requirement to be a poll worker), but we vote for different people. We live in polarized times. I’m sure all of us have been on social media and in groups of friends who—like the boys in the Robbers Cave study—have talked about how great our party is and what (pick your favorite insult) the other party is.

But like the boys in the Robbers Cave experiment on Election Day, I think we also come together. I love to work with these people. We always end the night with a tired wave, saying, "See you next time."

Why?

We have been working together, solving problems, all day. Figuring out why a voter isn’t showing up in our records. Helping people to put their ballot on the right side up. Reminding each other to put a ballot in the machine before we hit print.

We end the day by working in pairs—Republican and Democrat—turning machines off, flipping them over, wrapping electrical cords, and packing boxes. In other words, like the boys at Robbers Cave, working together.

And it feels good.