The objective of the experiment was to teach her students what prejudice and discrimination meant and felt like.
According to Plotnik and Kouyoumdjian (2014), prejudice refers to negative feelings towards others because of their association to another group. It is “unfair, biased, or intolerant”. Discrimination refers to a “specific” set of negative behaviors towards people of another group.
The exercise began with Jane dividing the class into groups: one with the blue-eyed kids and the other with the brown- and green-eyed kids. She informed them that the brown-eyed kids were better, as they were “smarter and cleaner”. She convinced her students that melanin is what causes intelligence, and this is why brown-eyed kids are smarter.
As a result, the brown-eyed kids began to treat their blue-eyed classmates harshly. They began making up reasons on their own about others’ intelligence without Jane having to make one up. According to Bloom (2005), when Jane was asked why she was a teacher although she was a ‘bluey’, one of the brown-eyed kids deduced that if she had brown eyes, she would have been the principal. Withdrawn and slow brown-eyed students suddenly became brighter and more confident. On the other hand, the blue-eyed students suffered. Not only were they being discriminated, their grades were also affected. A smart ‘bluey’ began to make mistakes in her multiplication tables when before, she had never had any problems with it. When brown-eyed girls told her to apologise to them for no reason at all, she acquiesced. Blue-eyed students who used to excel now worsened. When the experiment was reversed, the results were similar, though less extreme. This is because the ‘blueys’ who had had the nasty experience of being mistreated did not want others to feel what they felt. Thus, the brown-eyed students, who were now told that they were dumber, were not treated as badly by the blue-eyed students. At the end of the experiment, the students shared that, when they were the ones discriminating, they wanted to fully exercise their power over the ‘dumber’ people. When they were the ones being discriminated, they felt angry and wronged, but were unable to do anything. Schemas are mental templates, where we perceive, think of and respond to other people. Schemas can “influence, bias, and distort our social cognitions.” There are four types of schemas. Attributions are inferences that you make regarding what caused an event or behavior, be it your own, or others. (Plotnik & Kouyoumdjian, 2014) The students behaved the way they did due to 2 types of schemas: self-schema and person schema. …show more content…
Self-schemas contain information about ourselves, and this information influences how we perceive, think and behave with other people. Upon being told that they were the better people, the brown-eyed kids formed a self-schema where they are ‘more superior’. This self-schema influences them to treat the blue-eyed kids badly as they are ‘inferior’, and makes them feel more self-confident as they know they are the better group. It’s the opposite for the blue-eyed kids who are experiencing the discrimination, and therefore have more negative self-schemas. Person schemas contain general information about other people that indicates our judgements about the traits that we process. Here, the brown-eyed students form person schemas of the ‘blueys’ that makes them judge them unfairly. For instance, ‘blueys’ are dumber and get in the way, so they need to apologise to the …show more content…
(Plotnik & Kouyoumdjian, 2014)
Here, the brown-eyed students blame the blue-eyed students
A collectivistic culture depends on group harmony and consensus. An individualistic culture depends upon the values of freedom and independence. (Lombardo, J. n.d.)
According to O'Neil, D. (2011), socialization refers to “the general process of acquiring culture”. Culture refers to the “set of ideas, behaviors, attitudes, and traditions that exist within large groups of people and is passed down from generation to generation.”
Non-special needs students make up the majority of society, and they are what our society deems ‘normal’, thus their transition into a social life is generally easy. Special needs students however, go through a very different experience when going out into the world, as people will judge them, be it because they doubt their mental or physical capabilities or simply out of pure
According to Plotnik and Kouyoumdjian (2014), prejudice refers to negative feelings towards others because of their association to another group. It is “unfair, biased, or intolerant”. Discrimination refers to a “specific” set of negative behaviors towards people of another group.
The exercise began with Jane dividing the class into groups: one with the blue-eyed kids and the other with the brown- and green-eyed kids. She informed them that the brown-eyed kids were better, as they were “smarter and cleaner”. She convinced her students that melanin is what causes intelligence, and this is why brown-eyed kids are smarter.
As a result, the brown-eyed kids began to treat their blue-eyed classmates harshly. They began making up reasons on their own about others’ intelligence without Jane having to make one up. According to Bloom (2005), when Jane was asked why she was a teacher although she was a ‘bluey’, one of the brown-eyed kids deduced that if she had brown eyes, she would have been the principal. Withdrawn and slow brown-eyed students suddenly became brighter and more confident. On the other hand, the blue-eyed students suffered. Not only were they being discriminated, their grades were also affected. A smart ‘bluey’ began to make mistakes in her multiplication tables when before, she had never had any problems with it. When brown-eyed girls told her to apologise to them for no reason at all, she acquiesced. Blue-eyed students who used to excel now worsened. When the experiment was reversed, the results were similar, though less extreme. This is because the ‘blueys’ who had had the nasty experience of being mistreated did not want others to feel what they felt. Thus, the brown-eyed students, who were now told that they were dumber, were not treated as badly by the blue-eyed students. At the end of the experiment, the students shared that, when they were the ones discriminating, they wanted to fully exercise their power over the ‘dumber’ people. When they were the ones being discriminated, they felt angry and wronged, but were unable to do anything. Schemas are mental templates, where we perceive, think of and respond to other people. Schemas can “influence, bias, and distort our social cognitions.” There are four types of schemas. Attributions are inferences that you make regarding what caused an event or behavior, be it your own, or others. (Plotnik & Kouyoumdjian, 2014) The students behaved the way they did due to 2 types of schemas: self-schema and person schema. …show more content…
Self-schemas contain information about ourselves, and this information influences how we perceive, think and behave with other people. Upon being told that they were the better people, the brown-eyed kids formed a self-schema where they are ‘more superior’. This self-schema influences them to treat the blue-eyed kids badly as they are ‘inferior’, and makes them feel more self-confident as they know they are the better group. It’s the opposite for the blue-eyed kids who are experiencing the discrimination, and therefore have more negative self-schemas. Person schemas contain general information about other people that indicates our judgements about the traits that we process. Here, the brown-eyed students form person schemas of the ‘blueys’ that makes them judge them unfairly. For instance, ‘blueys’ are dumber and get in the way, so they need to apologise to the …show more content…
(Plotnik & Kouyoumdjian, 2014)
Here, the brown-eyed students blame the blue-eyed students
A collectivistic culture depends on group harmony and consensus. An individualistic culture depends upon the values of freedom and independence. (Lombardo, J. n.d.)
According to O'Neil, D. (2011), socialization refers to “the general process of acquiring culture”. Culture refers to the “set of ideas, behaviors, attitudes, and traditions that exist within large groups of people and is passed down from generation to generation.”
Non-special needs students make up the majority of society, and they are what our society deems ‘normal’, thus their transition into a social life is generally easy. Special needs students however, go through a very different experience when going out into the world, as people will judge them, be it because they doubt their mental or physical capabilities or simply out of pure