Blue Eye / Brown Eye Experiment

1. Blue Eye/Brown Eye Experiment Jill, Jassmin, Marlene

2. Purpose To try segregation through eye color instead of skin color. It was a result of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, as well as the idea was derived from Hitler’s attempt at the holocaust.

3. Who? Jane Elliot was the creator of the experiment. Her students (grade 3) served as her guinea pigs.

4. The Experiment On the first day, the blue-eyed children were called superior. The brown-eyed kids were told to wear blue collars to show they were inferior.

5. The blue-eyed children received special privileges, such as: • Second helpings at lunch • Got to play on the new jungle gym • Five minutes of extra recess • And got to sit at the front of the room

6. The blue-eyed children were encouraged to only play with blue-eyed children and ignore brown-eyed children. Blue-eyes and brown-eyes were not allowed to drink from the same water fountain. Brown-eyed children were often scolded for mistakes.

7. A large change happened in the first fifteen minutes. At first, the minority group, brown-eyes, resisted. Elliot told them that the blue-eyed children were smarter because of their blue-eyes. They stopped resisting.

8. The blue-eyes became bossy and arrogant, while the brown-eyes became timid and obedient.

9. The second day, brown-eyed children were superior. Less intense taunting came from the brown-eyed children. At the end of the day, Elliot told the blue-eyed children to take off the collars and all the children cried and hugged each other.

10. What was discovered? There was almost immediate change in the children's behavior towards the minority group. It was discovered that when someone is told that they are better/smarter than someone, they begin to act like they are superior. It exposes our part in prejudice, showing what it really is. Which is an irrational class system based on nothing.

11. The children that were superior their grades went up during mathematical and reading tasks that seemed outside their ability before. • The inferior children failed tasks that before had been simple. It exposes our part in prejudice, showing what it really is. Which is an irrational class system based on nothing.

12. How did it change psychology? Added her information to the knowledge base and showed how powerful the power of suggestion can be with people. Her study also showed how readily people will accept ideas told to them by an authority figure. In conclusion, we are being taught by Jane how racism is created. Self fulfilling prophecy: a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true by the very terms of the prophecy itself due to positive or negative feedback

13. Video! • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew_2G-jb5ek&feature=related

14. Bibliography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Elliott http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=jane+elliott&um=1&hl=en&safe=active&sa=X&tbs=isz:m&tbm=isch&tbnid=6Z_-y9T73BAevM:&imgrefurl=http://www.cptc.edu/jane/&docid=JrAz0AQjYCRwZM&w=435&h=298&ei=YehwTqfvEIOtsAL9_KzgCQ&zoom=1&biw=1264&bih=830&iact=rc&dur=235&page=1&tbnh=140&tbnw=187&start=0&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:12,s:0&tx=116&ty=55 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew_2G-jb5ek&feature=related watch-documentaries-online.com