Re: Blue Eyes Brown Eyes - Program Evaluation

[Scott Lilienfeld]

Jean: Yes, I share your sentiments.  I saw Tracy Stewart give a nice talk on the topic (she's nearby at Georgia State, a long stone's throw away from us at Emory), and I was surprised by the resistance put up by Elliott to objective evaluation of her claims.  Like Jean, I find that attitude troubling.  ...Scott ----- Original Message ----- From: Jean-Marc Perreault To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 4:18 PM Subject: RE: Blue Eyes Brown Eyes - Program Evaluation I just finished reading the following, recommended by Scott:   Stewart, T. L., La Duke, J. R., Bracht, C., Sweet, B. A. M., & Gamarel, K. E. (2003). Do the "eyes" have it? A program evaluation of Jane Elliott's "blue eyes/brown eyes" diversity training exercise. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33, 1898-1921.   Very interesting. But there are many issues with the evaluation.   For one, Jane Elliott herself put conditions on the research team. Such conditions included: No pretest posttest, "because Elliott agreed to the assessment of her exercise only under the condition that no pretest or postest measures be implemented" (p.1902);   Post-test evaluation to be done only six weeks after the actual workshop session, “The assessment sessions originally were scheduled to be conducted during the 2 weeks immediately following the exercise, a plan that had been approved by Elliott several months prior to the exercise. However, on the evening prior to the exercise, Elliott previewed some of the assessment measures and expressed second thoughts about allowing her activity to be assessed empirically. She stated that she was particularly concerned that participating in the assessment might influence participant’ behaviour during the follow-up discussion session scheduled to be held 4 weeks after the activity. It was agreed, therefore, to delay the assessment until after the follow-up discussion session [6 weeks after the exercise]” (p.1906).     The authors also included questions to the participants regarding their levels of discomfort during the exercise, and whether they were glad they had participated in the exercise or not. Overall, most said they were glad they had, but the discriminated upon group was not willing to recommend the activity to their friends as the non-victimized group. Could the overall positive rating of the exercise be due to cognitive dissonance rather than to effectiveness? The authors throw the question in   I find it unfortunate that Mrs. Elliott felt the need to intrude in the design of the experiment. It certainly does not inspire confidence, especially when she asks for 10,000$ for training in her method.   Cheers!   JM       -----Original Message----- From: Scott Lilienfeld [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: February 27, 2006 5:37 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences Subject: Re: Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment - Lucrative Market   Jean: See:   Stewart, T. L., La Duke, J. R., Bracht, C., Sweet, B. A. M., & Gamarel, K. E. (2003). Do the "eyes" have it? A program evaluation of Jane Elliott's "blue eyes/brown eyes" diversity training exercise. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33, 1898-1921.     To my knowledge, this is about the only (admittedly preliminary) research to examine the efficacy of this exercise.  ....Scott       ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jean-Marc Perreault" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences" <tips@acsun.frostburg.edu> Sent: Monday, February 27, 2006 12:26 AM Subject: Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experiment - Lucrative Market     >  > 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. Basically, Mrs. Elliott uses the same type of setting as in her > initial experiment. She classifies individuals by eye colour, and has the > main group (brown eyes) discriminate against the blue eyes (or something > like that). It gets quite intense, and this brings people to some form of > insight about racism and hidden biases. >  > My colleague also mentioned she was thinking of attending a "train the > trainers" workshop to be able to lead such workshops herself. This > triggered > my curiosity, and so I contacted Jane Elliott to inquire about such > courses. > She kindly replied that she was going to offer one this coming summer, and > that for the 10-day course, the fee was 10,000$ US. Ouch! I did not expect > such a fee! >  > I may have considered such a workshop, if only for the sake of meeting Mrs > Elliott and making my own impression about such a way of leading > workshops. > I have my own reservations with regards to the ethics of putting the > groups > through such intense pressure. But for 10,000$, well, what can I say other > that I am unlikely to ever meet her in such a context! >  > My question to you all is whether you are aware of any research that may > have been done on the efficacy of such an approach to change attitudes, > especially with regards to racism. If such an approach has been > demonstrated > to be efficacious, (and ethical) then it may be worth the cost. But if it > is > not backed by any solid evidence, well... I am interested because up here > in > the North, we have a lot of systemic racism going on. It would be nice to > have something that is both easy to market, and worth everybody's time. >  > So let loose on your keyboards and let me know your thoughts. I've always > liked the basic Blue eyes brown eyes experiment. I now need to look at it > more closely. >  > Cheers all! >  > Jean-Marc >  >  >  >  >  >  > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] >     --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]