Blue Eyes And Brown Eyes: Jane Elliott’s Experiment

Professor Jane Elliott’s experiments took place immediately after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and the purpose was to teach the participating students about racial discrimination using the minimal group radym.

The minimal group radigm is the basis for all methodology in social psychology. In general, it is about determining differences between the number of individuals in order to divide them into different groups.

With this technology, researchers can see how many different characteristics are necessary to create defined groups and then analyze the individuals’ behavior within the groups.

In the 1960s, the United States was in the midst of a social crisis rooted in racism. Professor Jane Elliott conducted a group experiment with her students that they would never forget. The idea was simple but profound.

She wanted to show her students that an arbitrarily determined difference could separate them and create conflicts between them.

Jane Elliott’s experiment

Jane Elliott, a teacher and anti-racism activist, conducted a direct experiment with her students in her classroom. She told them that people with brown eyes were better than people with blue eyes.

She also had the brown-eyed students put paper bracelets on the blue-eyed students.

Eye color

Using a few simple and arbitrary examples, Elliott argued that brown-eyed people were better. The students were surprised, but made no objections.

In this way, she managed to create two clearly different groups in the classroom:

• Brown-eyed people. Most of the students in the room were brown-eyed. These felt superior and had the support of an authority figure (the teacher). The brown-eyed students also exercised a certain demonstration of power towards the blue-eyed students when they put bracelets on them.

• Blue-eyed people. This group was smaller. Elliott claimed that blue-eyed people were less intelligent and less clean. In addition to the fact that they were fewer in number, they also had the authority figure against them.

Discrimination

The consequences for the minimal group quickly became clear. Such a banal difference as eye color, defined and established by an authority figure, gave rise to a gap between the students.

The brown-eyed children began to act aggressively and maliciously towards the blue-eyed children, and the blue-eyed children felt discriminated against by the brown-eyed.

How did the discrimination manifest itself?

Normally, “blue eyes” are not an insult. But in this classroom, blue eyes had become a condition of inferiority. Consequently, the brown-eyed children began to use “blue eyes” as an insult.

The brown-eyed children did not want to play with the children with blue eyes on the break and they constantly harassed them.

The consequences of the experiment

The arbitrary division of the students intensified during the course of the experiment, and this to such an extent that it actually culminated in physical violence.

It is common for children to quarrel, quarrel and sometimes hit each other, but in this case they did so because of eye color.

The next day, Elliott threw over the groups. She told the students that the brown-eyed children were inferior and repeated the experiment. The results were the same.

From the classroom to real life

When reading about this experiment, it is difficult not to question labels.

If this arbitrary division that Elliott established for a few hours created so many problems in this classroom, what happens in a larger perspective?

Given all the stereotypes and prejudices that exist, what kind of harm occurs there?

It is no surprise that certain sections of society discriminate against others on the basis of ethnic origin, religion or culture. These differences give rise to war and hatred.

Even family members can turn to each other if an authority suddenly decides that such differences are a problem.

A matter of upbringing

Jane Elliott has reflected a lot on the consequences of the experiment with minimal groups.

For her, it is shocking how children who are normally kind, cooperative and friendly towards each other suddenly become arrogant, discriminatory and hostile when they belong to a “superior” group.

The hatred and discrimination we see in adults has its origins in their upbringing. Society made them believe that they were better than other people for arbitrary reasons, such as skin color or gender.

Minimal groups today

This paradigm helps us to understand current issues related to discrimination.

Today’s increased immigration means more opportunities for people with different backgrounds to interact with each other, which often leads to conflicts.

People and cultures that are already established in one place often feel threatened by new immigrants. They respond by creating gaps between inferior and superior.

As a result of these divisions, one finds racial discrimination and also terrorism.

The importance of an education free from discrimination

The goal of the minimal group radig is to establish subjective differences and create a climate of favoritism. In this way, the dominant group, with the support of the authorities, will always have the upper hand.

This procedure is sometimes so subtle that no one notices it. Here are some guidelines for how to prevent or reduce these effects:

• Normalize differences. In an educational context, the normalization of superficial differences between children can alleviate the experience of superiority.
• Integration activities. It is important to mix individuals with different characteristics, beliefs and cultures as much as possible and get them to work together towards a common goal.
• The role of the teacher. In an authoritarian environment, the group closest to the authority figure (the teacher in this case) will feel superior and justified. Therefore, teachers must act as mediators, not as instigators.

In summary, it can be stated that Jane Elliott’s experiments demonstrate how fragile human coexistence and cooperation are.

It also shows how arbitrary and subjective phenomena can cause friends, family members and citizens to turn against each other.