Herb: I don't agree that individuals' self-report that "this
exercise/treatment was valuable for me" should be sufficient grounds for
accepting that this exercise/treatment was in fact valuable. Decades of
psychological research demonstrate that a plethora of factors can make
people, including those in the treatment conditions themselves, report that
a treatment was valuable even when it was not. They include illusory
placebo effects, effort justification, demand characteristics, and the like.
Hence, "subjective validation" of an intervention or assessment technique
can be highly misleading. Moreover, some of the apparent effects Elliott
reports could be short-term, as her exercise often involves a good deal of
humiliation, the emotional impact of which could be quite powerful in the
short-term but which might dissipate over time.
I'd want to see much more objective long-term evidence that this
exercise is worth the time, effort, and energy (not to mention emotional
upset) involved.
....Scott
----- Original Message -----
From: "Herb Coleman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 1:26 PM
Subject: Blue Eyes Brown Eyes NOT an Experiment
Subject: Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment - Lucrative Market
From: Jean-Marc Perreault <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2006 21:26:40 -0800
X-Message-Number: 1
Greetings everyone,
I was speaking with a colleague recently who mentioned
she
had attended a workshop given by Jane Elliott (made famous through her
ingenuous blue eyes brown eyes experiment). She said (my colleague) the
workshop was aimed at making "white people" understand what it is like to
be
the victim of racism. Within a few hours only, these individuals are
apparently brought to experience discrimination, and made aware of their
own
biases. ...
Your first mistake was in calling her EXERCISE an EXPERIMENT. When she
presented at the University of Texas at Austin several years ago she made
it clear that she does not experiment with children or adults. She uses
the exercise to make people aware of what's already going on. When asked
about the cognitive and emotional discomfort caused, she asks is it better
to allow people to go discriminating and and ignoring discrimination that
is destroying peoples' lives?
What's interesting is that those who have been through her workshops, even
those whom she "beat up" on the most come away saying the experience was
invaluable. They all happy they've been through it. This comes from
several classes of students as well as business people she's done the
workshop for. Of course this is her reporting with her video. However,
since it's been done many times and over many years, I would suspect that
anyone who had a different reaction would have spoken up by now.
As for the ethics of what she's charging, I just have to ask , how many of
us are teaching for free? How many of us write textbooks or other books
and give them away? I'm sure that the training transforms people in a way
that is permanent. Also remember in this training she's basically
training you to replace her. Certainly, I would wish that she would be
willing to train more people for less (since she's not getting any
younger). What's even more shocking is that in almost 40 years no one
else seems to come close to having as powerful an impact.
Of course that's just my opinion...or is it?
--
Herb Coleman
Instructional Technology Manager
Austin Community College
11928 Stonehollow
Austin, TX 78758-3101
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
512-223-4752
*************************************************
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that
you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover"
-Mark Twain
or put more simply
"I will go for my shots and not die wondering."
-Alicia Molik, Australian Tennis Player
*************************************************
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