The Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment

The Blue Eyes and Brown Eyes Experiment
Student’s name
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The main ethical issue that needs to be considered when conducting the Blue eye Brown eye experiment was the informed consent of the participants, given that the students who participated in this study for the first time where less than eight years old. It is difficult to tell whether they were informed about the research and they accepted to participate as required in APA code of conduct. They were also not informed about any physical harm, discomfort, invasion to privacy and threat to dignity. During the research, it is clear that the students who were told that they were of low intellectual capacity had their dignity threatened. The APA code of conduct also requires that the freedom to withdraw anytime must also be explained, in this research, the freedom to withdraw was not explained to the participants. Another issue is researching with vulnerable groups, people who cannot advocate for their rights. The research was first conducted on young children who cannot protect themselves even if their rights are infringed. It is clear that during the research, the children were deceived about how the amount of melanin affected their intellectual capacity. It is also not clear whether the parents of these children were informed in advance about the study (Canter, Bennett, Jones & Nagy, 1994).
The children who participated in this research were not able to give consent because of their age and the child-teacher relationship between them.

The research needs to be conducted among adults or people who can understand and give permission to be participants. Another issue is the question of deception. Mrs. Jane might have used deception in the right way to make her research successful, but it remains deception. The participant has right not to be deceived. It is therefore expedient that no deception should be used during the research unless it has been proved to be of no negative effect on the participants and there is no other non-deceptive alternative. The participants must also give consent (Stewart, Laduke, Bracht, Sweet, & Gamarel, 2003).
The main aim of the experiment was to determine the cause of the social problem of discrimination on minorities. Both the groups used in the study felt the same way by the end of the research. But the central question is whether it was worth it. Even if the participants were debriefed afterward, there are drawbacks in using deception. According to the APA code of conduct, psychologists should not deceive participants during the research, unless they have justified that it is significant and of high value and no other non-deceptive method can work. It might be true for the Blue eyes/ Brown eyes exercise. The result of the exercise also outweighs the potential harm since the participants were debriefed immediately afterward (Canter et al., 1994).
Conducting the Blue eye/brown eye experiment may not be possible now without raising ethical concerns. The APA code of conduct is strict on psychological researchers, and all researchers are required to comply with the APA code of conduct and ethical standards before carrying out their research. It was inappropriate for Mrs. Jane to research without seeking the consent of her participants or the consent of their parents. The use of deception may be justifiable depending on the effect of the study on the society, and whether it was possible to do such studies using non-deceptive means or not, the right of the participants are protected, and the research is in compliance with the APA code of conduct and ethical standard (Stewart et al., 2003).

References
Canter, M. B., Bennett, B. E., Jones, S. E., & Nagy, T. F. (1994). Ethics for psychologists: A commentary on the APA Ethics Code. American Psychological Association.
Stewart, T. L., Laduke, J. R., Bracht, C., Sweet, B. A., & 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(9), 1898-1921.