Scott,
I do have a teaching case study that has shown some objective evidence
that it changes racism. We don't know how long this effect lasts. We
were surprised that it showed effects as the Social Psychological wisdom
at the time suggested that only positive contact in an interdependent
task between equals was effective in changing racial attitudes. You can
read the evidence that attitudes were changed in the article Ford, T.
E., Grossman, R.W., & Jordan, E. A. (1997). Teaching about
unintentional racism in introductory psychology. /Teaching of
psychology/, vol. 24, No. 3. If you have the interest you can get the
case and teaching notes at:
Grossman, R.W. & Ford, T.E. (2004) /Teaching notes and case material for
Tim Hanks: A case study of unintentional racism.
/http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/cases/ubcase.htm
<http://www.sciencecases.org/racism/racism.asp>
We used the case mainly to teach a social psychology unit in general
psychology.
This case doesn't have the emotional impact of the Jane Elliot exercise
but it also doesn't have some of the negative reactions that I think
some of her students experienced. If I remember correctly some students
and parents had quite a negative reaction. When I have done similar
power and discrimination exercises (like "Star Power") I have been
concerned about some of the strong negative reactions a few of my
college students had. Being criticized and discriminated against, when
you are in a relative powerless position, even in a game situation can
create a lot of emotional pain for people.
I remember one group of international aid workers we did this game with
and all of the individuals from third world countries ended up in the
lowest power group. It was supposed to be only by chance that you got
in this group and every person of color ended up there. The leaders of
the exercise weren't prepared for this and didn't handle it very well.
When we did talk about it we found the westerners were playing very
"competitively" while the third world individuals were playing
"cooperatively" and this totally skewed the results. It was a very
powerful experience of difference and the consequences of it in a
western developed game context.
Bob Grossman
Kalamazoo College
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lilienfeld wrote:
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
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