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As
an adult, have you ever done likewise to aged people, ignored them as persons because they are
members of an out-group? Have you ever treated a person who was performing a service for
you as if he or she was nothing more than a machine?
A Demonstration of Prejudice
One of the most effective demonstrations of how easily prejudiced attitudes may be formed,
and how arbitrary and illogical they can be, came from a third-grade class in Riceville, Iowa.
The teacher, Jane Elliott, wanted to provide her students from this all-white, rural community
with the experience of prejudice and discrimination in order to draw from it the implications
of its seductive appeal and devastating consequences. She devised a remarkable experiment,
more compelling than many done by professional psychologists.
One day, blue-eyed Ms. Elliott announced to her class of 9-year-olds that brown-eyed people
were more intelligent and better people than those with blue eyes. The blue-eyed children,
although the majority, were simply told that they were inferior and that the brown-eyed
children should therefore be the “ruling class.” Guidelines were laid down so the inferior
group would “keep their place” in the new social order. They were to sit at the back of the
room, stay at the end of the line, use paper cups (instead of the drinking fountains), and so
on. The “superior” students received extra privileges, such as extra recess time for work well
done.
Within minutes the blue-eyed children began to do more poorly on their lessons and became
depressed, sullen, and angry. They described themselves as “sad,” “bad,” “stupid,” “dull,”
“awful,” “hard,” “mean.” One boy said he felt like a “vegetable.” Of the brown-eyed
superiors, the teacher reported, “What had been marvelously cooperative, thoughtful
children became nasty, vicious, discriminating little third-graders . . . it was ghastly.”
To show how arbitrary and irrational prejudice and its rationalizations are, on the next school
day the teacher told the class that she had erred, that it was really the blue-eyed children who
were superior and the brown-eyed ones who were inferior. The brown-eyed children now
switched from their previously “happy,” “good,” “sweet,” “nice” self-labels to derogatory
ones similar to those used the day before by the blue-eyed. Their academic performance
deteriorated, while that of the new ruling class improved. Old friendship patterns between
children dissolved and were replaced with hostility. The children reacted with relief and
delight at the end, when they were “debriefed” and learned that none of them was “inferior”
to others (Elliott, 1977).
This experiment, recorded in the film Eye of the Storm, has been repeated with other classes and
even adult groups with the same results. In each case the assumption of power by one group over
another based on supposed superiority has led to discriminatory behavior, disruption in the
social structure, loss of self-esteem, change in performance by the “inferior” members in
accordance with their ascribed status, and justification by the superiors for the pattern of
discrimination sanctioned by the “system.”
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CHAPTER 18: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE
Suggestions for Reducing Racism
The difference between prejudice and racism (broadly defined) is a difference between
individuals and systems. While prejudice is carried in the minds and actions of individuals,
racism is perpetuated across generations by laws and treaties, group norms, and customs. It is
carried by newspapers, textbooks, and other communication media.
A prevailing racist ideology in a culture constantly provides the “informational” support and
social endorsement for discrimination despite personal evidence of its invalidity and injustice.
Such ideas become unquestioned assumptions that are seen not as biased opinions of distorted
values but as self-evident truths. They are a major contributor to racial differences in the quality
of employment, housing, schooling, health care, and nutrition. They also contribute to crime and
violence and, in other cultures and other times, have led to “holy wars.”
Overt Racism
Under the banner of the “white man’s burden,” colonialists exploited the resources of black
Africa. Native Americans were deprived of their land, liberty, and ecological niche in the United
States by newly arrived European immigrants whose desires for wealth, homesteads, and new
frontiers were in conflict with the “menace of the red savages.” The “yellow peril” was another
journalistic fiction, used to set people’s thinking against Americans of Asian ancestry. After their
usefulness was over as laborers on the railroads, in the mines, and other manual jobs, the press
and labor groups mounted campaigns to deport the Chinese, and to deprive both Chinese and
Japanese immigrants of the rights and privileges of American citizenship. Over 100,000 Japanese
Americans were put into concentration camps in the Western states during World War II. Their
property was sold at small return, and millions of dollars were held by the government and used
by American bankers for 30 years without interest. Nothing comparable was done to those of
German or Italian ancestry, America’s other two enemies during that same war.
When a group becomes the target of prejudice and discrimination, it is socially segregated,
preventing normal interchange and blocking or destroying channels of communication. This
isolation, in turn, allows rumors and stereotypes to go unchecked, fantasies to surface and grow,
and the “strangeness” of the group, real and fancied, to increase over time. The isolation of
Native Americans on reservations and the racially segregated housing patterns in our cities
increase the alienation between groups and prevent both reality checks and causal interaction.
Covert Racism
The public opinion poll is one way of assessing the extent of racism in a society. If you can
believe what people say, there is a decreasing amount of negative stereotyping and adverse
attitudes of whites toward African Americans in the United States. Americans seem to be
changing their attitudes about racial integration.
Are overt expressions of prejudice diminishing or merely being suppressed?