More Psychological Experiments by Laurel Ferguson
I really enjoyed studying the psychological and social experiments in English these past few weeks, so I decided to find some more and compile them here for anyone else who was interested. A Class Divided This study, conducted by Jane Elliot, was designed to mimic racism and prejudice. Elliot divided a classroom of children based on eye color. She gave the blue-eyed group special privileges and told them they were the superior group. Individuals from the brown-eyed group were criticized by Elliot and treated poorly. Throughout the experiment, the blue-eyed group showed an improvement in academic performance and even mirrored Elliot's poor treatment of the brown-eyed group, while the brown-eyed group experienced deteriorating self-confidence and worsened academic performance. Little Albert Experiment This study was conducted at Johns Hopkins University in 1920 to determine whether they could condition a 9-month old baby to have an irrational fear of rats....