The contribution of weak droplet-phase elasticity is investigated for blends of polybutadiene in poly(dimethyl siloxane) in a simple shearing flow with droplet-phase Weissenberg number, Wi(d), up to around unity. The elasticity of the polybutadiene-dispersed phase is varied by adding various amounts of high-molecular-weight polybutadiene into low-molecular-weight polybutadiene Newtonian fluid. To isolate the contribution of elasticity, the experiments are conducted at fixed viscosity ratio by varying the experimental temperature to counteract the small effect of high-molecular-weight polymer on droplet viscosity. Droplet deformation and relaxation are measured using an optical flow cell mounted on an optical microscope. As the droplet-phase elasticity increases, the steady-state shape deformation at fixed capillary number, Ca, decreases and the critical capillary number for droplet breakup increases. For a 20% dispersed phase blend, the steady-state capillary number calculated from the volume-averaged droplet diameter increases with increasing droplet-phase elasticity, but is smaller than for an isolated droplet, suggesting that coalescence has little effect on droplet size in these experiments. However, in startup of shear flow, the elasticity of the droplet does not affect the droplet shape, either during the startup of shear flow or during the relaxation process after the startup of shear flow for ratios of Wi(d)/Ca up to 0.033. (C) 2003 The Society of Rheology.