What do kids think about kids in eyeglasses

Many studies have been conducted to examine the effects of glasses on people’s perceptions. These studies either evaluated how others felt about people with glasses (Terry and Hall, 1989; Harris, 1991; Terry and Krantz, 1993) or how people wearing glasses felt about themselves (Gording and Match, 1968; Terry and Brady, 1976; Terry, 1981, 1989; Terry et al., 1983, 1997; Harris, 1991; Kidd et al., 1997; Lyon et al., 2002). Some studies used pictures or videos of subjects with and without glasses to determine the effects of glasses on others’ perceptions through a survey. Using a 135-item survey, undergraduate students rated pictures of people based on social value, social forcefulness and mental competence. People wearing glasses were rated with diminished forcefulness and heightened competence (Terry and Krantz, 1993). Under the guise of forming first impressions during job interviews, undergraduate students watched a video tape in which either a man or a woman entered an office and sat at a desk across the room; one time wearing glasses and another time not wearing glasses. When wearing glasses, the people were considered more artistic, fearful, mild, timid, dependent, soft, gentle, kind and sensitive (Terry, 1989). Two studies using picture comparisons also found people wearing glasses to be judged as more intelligent (Thornton, 1943, 1944), industrious (Thornton, 1943, 1944), dependable (Thornton, 1943) and honest (Thornton, 1943, 1944). Some studies also asked people who wear visual correction about themselves. One study measured changes in shyness and facial satisfaction for two groups: subjects changing from glasses to contact lenses and subjects changing from no correction to glasses. There was no difference in the change in shyness or the change in facial satisfaction when subjects switched visual correction in either group (Hadjistavropoulos and Genest, 1988). Another study used the House-Tree-Person drawing method to measure changes in a subject’s personality. Positive changes after contact lens fitting were observed in 70% of the subjects (Gording and Match, 1968). All of the previous studies were performed in adults, but one study found that self-esteem was lower for people who first received their glasses when they were children (younger than 13 years) or adults (older than 20 years), rather than when they were adolescents (age 13–20 years; Terry et al., 1983). A study of children found no significant differences in self-perceptions between children who wore glasses and children who did not wear glasses (Lyon et al., 2002). In another study, in which children were randomly assigned to wear glasses or contact lenses for 3 years, no difference in the rate of change of self-concepts between the spectacle and contact lens wearers was detected (Terry et al., 1997). Terry and Stockton (1993) also asked first grade children to rate pictures of children with and without glasses, and they found that children were more likely to be less attractive, poorer at school and more deviant when they wore their glasses. The only two studies performed on children have not found an effect of spectacle wear on self-perception, but no studies have examined the effect of spectacle wear on children’s perceptions of other children with glasses. We conducted the Children’s Attitudes about Kids in Eyeglasses (CAKE) study to determine whether spectacle wear affects children’s perceptions about their peers.