a) Jane Elliot a teacher tell her class of 9 years old that people with blue eyes are more intelligent and better than those with brown eyes. Brown – eyed students were to sit at the back and given less break time. Very quickly the brown – eyed became depressed, angry and started to perform less well. The next day she told the class that she made a mistake and that blue – eyed were more intelligent. At the end she debriefed students.
b) The effectiveness of Jane Elliott’s well-known “blue-eyes/brown-eyes” exercise in reducing college students’ stereotyping and prejudice was assessed. College students were randomly assigned to either the exercise group or a comparison group. Blue-eyed and brown-eyed exercise participants were given discriminatory versus preferential treatment, respectively; a procedure purportedly designed to sensitize participants to the emotional and behavioural consequences of discrimination. Participation in the exercise was found to be associated with White students
c) Ethnical issues raised by the study; children were deceived and consent was not obtained from parents. Study has caused psychological distress. Since children were unaware that they were in an experiment, there was no chance to withdraw
Iindicating significantly more positive attitudes toward Asian American and Latino/Latina individuals, but only marginally more positive attitudes toward African American individuals ( is that right?); and reporting anger with themselves when noticing themselves engaging in prejudiced thoughts or actions, negative affect that theoretically could prove to be either helpful or detrimental in promoting long-term reduction of stereotyping and prejudice.
The Essay on Reaction To Jane Elliot's Blue-eyed, Brown-eyed Experiment
... the brown eyed students not to interact with the blue eyed students, which is something that I feel was Elliot taking the exercise too ... recognition of the cost that prejudice and racial behavior has on an individual. This exercise employed an open dialogue ... something other than white. Elliot’s exercise pointed out both blatant and indirect ways that prejudice demoralizes people of color. ...
