Jane Elliott's Experiment

The case study that I have chosen for this particular paper comes under the section ‘Thinking Critically 1.2’ titled ‘The Man Who Shocked the World’. The case study mainly revolves around a controversial psychological experiment conducted by Dr. Stanley Milgram, a 28-year-old psychologist at Yale University who was also a Harvard graduate with a PhD. He basically chose to study human behavior and provide insights on the capacity of the members of the human race to inflict harm on each other. In order to carry out this study, he advertised for and chose participants from the general public who were only told that they would be volunteers in an experiment on punishment and learning.

I believe that I would do fine in taking part in Jane Elliott’s exercises. I have a unique view due to my circumstances from being a non-religious asexual aspie (Asperger’s). I have found that everything someone does can be traced back to a reason. Yes there is something for me to gain by taking her session however I am unsure what it is. I took socialization classes when I was younger at UC DAVIS that at the time didn’t think would really help me. They played a vital part in allowing me to advance to the stage I am at but at the time I didn’t think it was important. Even though I don’t know what I would get new experiences are a way to grow. The most important lessons to take away from this I believe are awareness and personal experience bias. Awareness is something that until it is put in to public knowledge the issue will never move on. For example the amount of funding that breast cancer gets compared to most other medical issues is huge. The reason for that is the awareness level of breast cancer in the public eye and how common it is for a high level of personal experiences with it in some way. Personal

This experiment used inductive. She started the experiment to observe how children treat the minority. She did not have a theory at that time. The range was the middle range theory. The reason is that the theory is used to try and explain a phenomenon. What was trying to be explained is how racism can still thrive in this modern day world. The experiments utilized macro-level theory. The experimenter was trying to test out an issue that is affecting the entire system of care the governmental systems have for minorities. Racism thrives in many communities. Jane Elliot was not experimenting individuals, but the community they live in.

The ethics of the study were however called into question (Banyard, 2012). One protestors among many was Diana Baumrind (Banyard, 2012). Baumrind (1964) argued whether the ‘welfare of the participants’ was considered Banyard (2012, p.79). Baumrind (1964) further criticised the experiment for the damage it could do the public’s perception of psychology (Banyard, 2012). In Milgram’s (1963) defence, he was not ignorant of the potential harm caused to participants, (Banyard, 2012). In fact, he was

She wanted to give each student a clear understating how it feels on both sides of the pole. The students immediately turned on their friends, both days, when they were told one eye color group was better than the other. Eliot’s experiment showed how kids are taught racism and how it only took 24hours. She gave them pre-test and post-test that showed that on the days the students with the superior eye color were treated better they scored higher while the secondary students tested poorly. The results were the same for both days. According to Matthew E. Lemberger and Tamiko Lemberger-Truelove, authors of Using the Transcultural Adlerian Conceptualization and Therapy (TACT) Model to Depict the Influence of Race-Based Trauma (2016) they agree with Courtney Heldreth et al., University of California, Los Angeles (2016), on their point that racism causes medical and mental issues on person wellbeing. Lemberger and True-lover notes racism can be seen as traumatic for a person and their growth (Lemberger and True-love, 2016 p.3) whereas Courtney Heldreth et al. claims that postpartum depression symptoms were partially mediated by everyday experience with racism (Heldreth et al, 2016 p.3).

Growing up left handed in a private school was seen as “the work of the devil,” and often times, I was smacked with a ruler on my knuckles and forced to use my right hand. As ambidextrous as I pretended to be, it was often a struggle sitting in a right-handed desk, and using right handed scissors. Not having the ability to use my left hand during this experiment brought me back to the “good old days” when I was shunned for using my left hand. I can most definitely say that this experiment related to issues surrounding cultural diversity because it seems that whatever the dominant culture is, they have a sense of seniority to the minority. In conclusion, I feel that the issues in cultural diversity will always be a struggle, or tug of war between the majority and minority. We need to realize and accept everyone for who they are and the beauty they posses, that way, we can build with each other and eventually take our hands from inside the sock and interlock it with the person standing beside

Studs Terkel (1980) relates C. P. Ellis' story about how his experiences organizing a union opened his eyes about how corporations treat minorities, and resulted in a new understanding of the people around him even though he was a former Klansman. I have never been in the Klan or organized a union, but a similar turning point for me came for me when I saw the movie "The Eye of the Storm," about Jane Elliot's experiment with white schoolchildren in Riceville, Iowa. This experiment demonstrated to me how children respond to cultural cues first from their parents and family members, but then through the institutions they are forced to participate in like school; the church; other families and supervisory agencies. If even white children can be taught to discriminate against other white children on something as arbitrary and insubstantial as eye color, then how easy it must be to train them to respond in denigrating ways to people with different skin color, body shapes or language for example, I realized. This changed my perspective on racism and ethnicity and while I have since done much research and believe education is the secret, the way I have decided to implement change in my own life, is to speak out when I hear someone making a denigrating comment.

This documentary was very informative. One of the several things I learned is how people form perceptions based off what they experience. For example, the children in the third-grade class felt they were more superior than other races because of what they had experienced throughout life. When the teacher asked them how they viewed black people, the children responded with hateful comments, this was a result of something they had heard or seen previously. During the experiment, I noticed how immediately the blue- eyed children felt some sense of power over the brown- eyed people because of what the teacher told them. Then on the next day they brown-eyed people felt superior. Not only did both sides experience discrimination, but collectively they learned that discrimination was not right. This was solely because the teacher taught them about discrimination. The scene that I think will stick with me is the scene after all the children had finished the experiment. In the end, the children experienced first-hand

The day after Martin King Jr. was shot a woman named Jane Elliot, a third grade teacher in Iowa, wanted to conduct a class experiment about racism. PBS did a documentary of this experiment and fourteen years reunited with the students to talk about their experience all on camera called, A Class Divided. Instead of lecturing these young kids about racism, Mrs. Elliot wanted her students to understand how it truly felt to be discriminated. She split the class between blue and brown eyed, students. The first day, students who were blue eye were superior and the brown eye students were worn collars and treated lesser than the blue eyes. The next day the roles were reversed so both sides could understand the importance of the experiment. Jane Elliot used her students as an example as to how empathy can be used to fight racial

Dr. Herta Oberheuser experimented on me multiple times, carelessly. She would inject me with evipan, pour boiling oil onto my skin and cause unbearable pain, physically and emotionally; these were made while I was fully conscious and awake. After I escaped, I would still have terrifying dreams where she would continue the experiments. I had to search for a psychologist to help me get rid of the dreams, hallucinations and the constant fear of sharp and heated objects.

The most impactful lesson I have learned from watching, “A Classroom Divided” was that it is exceedingly easy for people to talk about what they think racism and discrimination is, but it is very difficult to fully understand and appreciate the depth of what those terms really mean without experiencing it. To an extent, talking can help. Knowledge is spread through discussion and being informed. However, one of the greatest teachers in life is experience. I think Jane Elliot created an efficient experience that can teach people the effects and consequences of discrimination, prejudice, and bigotry.

The Velvet Glove written by Jackman (1994) reflects on Sherif et al.’s 1961 Summer Camp studies. Sherif and his colleagues manufactured methods of intergroup hostility that resonated the violence of intergroup conflict in the real world. They presented that children with no previous history of hostility or prejudice could promptly acquire several of the hallmarks of prejudice if placed under the right conditions, including negative stereotyping, voluntary isolation, and verbal and physical aggression (Dixon et al., 2012). In my opinion, I agree with Dixon et al. (2012) that prejudice can be learned primarily through unconscious learning that a child obtains and incorporates the prejudices predominant in his/her society.

Jane Elliots famous experiment a Class Divided,  was inspired by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The teacher, Mrs Elliot  thought this exercise to help her students comprehend the effects of racism and prejudice. Back in 1962, immediately after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. ,Jane Elliott experimented on teaching her third grade students about discrimination . For two days, she  made each of them experience real discrimination through provoking stereotyping and prejudice with usage of social psychological phenomena like cognitive errors, self-perceptions. Elliott first created stereotyping situation among the children by separating them into two groups by easily recognized physical traits as blue eyes and brown

The Rosenthal and Jacobson experiment was the study of elementary students and the effects teachers expectations have on their pupils. The result was in part what we call the Pygmalion effect, or as the book rightfully calls it "the self-fulfilling prophecy." The experiment was conduct by at the beginning of the academic year Rosenthal and Jacobson administered IQ test to the students. After the results were completed they then pick randomly one-fifth of the students tested and told their teachers they (these random students, with no consideration at all for their IQ results mind you) were special snowflakes and extraordinary in comparison to their peers. As a result the teachers behavior towards those students changed. Having the teachers now label them within the classroom setting as more intellectually curious thus granting them an edge compared to others.

The results showed that those not in the control group inflicted higher shocks to the learner subject (Milgram, 1965 as cited in Macaulay. J. and Berkowitz. L. 1970). This suggests that those who thought the experiment was being run by a highly prestigious research organisation, using moral reasoning, took less responsibility for their actions.