Intelligence testing

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Intelligence testing individual differences

• An origins story
• but not solely in academic departments
• biology, education, war, and social demands
• The importance of a concept and measurement
• . practical device and procedures
• Intimacy of psychology and society the promise
  of better management of problems

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Structure

• Usual story of Psychologys origins
• A science of individual differences? Phrenology
• Intelligence becomes a biological concept
• Early attempts to measure intelligence
• Education and the promise of measurement
• World War I and the promise of testing
• Post-war enthusiasm

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Usual story of Psychologys origin

• Histories to do with how we see ourselves.
• Grew out of philosophy of mind e.g. Wundt
• Used experimental methods of physiology to study
  mind
• Was first an academic discipline
• concerned with truth
• explaining normality
• a lab-based, experimental science
• practical value explaining abnormality
  spin-offs

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An alternative importance of psychology of
individual differences

• Science and measuring of individual differences
• Early C19 Phrenology
• size of bumps on head
• development of faculties
• Gall (1825)
• Spurzheim (1832)
• Popular e.g. Edinburgh lectures

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• Phrenology diagram

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Why was phrenology popular? Why is it important
to this history?

• Identification of human potential and of human
  weaknesses using science measurement
• Popular, accessible
• Mid- to late- C19 fell into disrepute
• But what remained
• possibility/attraction of measuring explaining
  individual differences in psychological qualities
  using science

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Individual differences and intelligence

• 1. The rise of the concept of intelligence
• 2. Intelligence becomes a psychological category
• 3. Measuring mental ability

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The rise of the concept of intelligence

• Rise of evolutionary thought in mind-19 century
• Darwin 1859 Origin of Species
• accounting for diversity and change
• variation by chance between and within species
• natural selection (high mortality rates,
  individual variation, adaptation)
• VARIATION is necessary part of nature
• Therefore individual differences as part of
  biological science .. As part of the natural
  order of things

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Evolutionary theorists e.g. Spencer (1820-1903)

• Spencer 1855 Principles of Psychology
• Intelligence as adaptive action survival of
  the fittest
• argued that biological, psychic and social
  evolution subject to same laws
• social Darwinism
• For Spencer, the social order and biological
  order either were or should be very similar (in
  popular form the its natural argument)

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From biology to psychology Francis Galton
(1822-1911)

• measurement and statistics
• Hereditary Genius (1869)
• inheritance includes abilities
• life as a continuous examination
• therefore, genius measured by achievement
• inherited abilities included mental improvement
  of man

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Galton anthropometrics

• Attempts to measure mental ability
• Physical measures because
• knowledge from external world
• perceptual abilities more acute in more able
• should be shown by tests of physical/perceptual
  ability
• Anthropometric lab at the International
  Exhibition, 1884

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Some key Galtonian claims

• Object of study population (contrast with Wundt)
• Method of investigation scientific test
• Data aggregates from large numbers of people
• Co-relation of abilities
• Pearsons Product moment
• Centre of distribution became a norm . normal
  distribution
• What was this all about?
• Science as elucidating social problems
• later Eugenics

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Consequences of evolutionary thought for
intelligence

• A biological category
• blurring human - animal
• social - natural
• political - biological
• intelligence is now a material entity
• it is graded variable
• because it is adaptive it is selected for
• it contrasts with other psychological qualities
  e.g. instinct intelligence is flexible

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So far.

• Idea implanted of measuring psychological
  qualities and individual differences in them
  (phrenology)
• Intelligence becoming embedded in biology (see
  Danziger, 1997)
• evolutionary thought
• applies to mind society (Spencer)
• animal intelligence (Romanes (1880s)
• variation can be both good and bad but is
  necessary
• preferred to intellect and reason
• Idea of it as a measurable thing or capacity e.g.
  Galton
• normally distributed ability
• Promise of usefulness of knowledge for improving
  population
• natural selection . Artificial selection

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How did psychology become a psychological
category?

• Credibility in biology credible for psychology
• Statistics of distributions e.g. normal curve
  Galton
• Education
• War

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Education (see Sutherland, 1977, Rose, 1985)

• Industrialization educated work force
• growing professional classes
• Compulsory universal education UK 1870s
• Standardization of lessons, syllabus, exams etc
• Teachers and schools as accountable to tax payers
• progress of pupils

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A problem is made visible

• children not making progress slowing others
• an abnormality feebleminded
• not idiocy but an invisible deficiency
• how to detect it?
• not medical doctors, not teachers so
• space for a new expertise to discover it

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Previously medicine, idiocy asylum
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• Feeblemindedness deemed important because
• a burden unemployment, delinquency, immorality
• a threat degeneracy of national stock, faster
  breeding
• Yet not visible
• subtle, insidious so MORE dangerous

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• 1922 Iowa

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Needed a means of detection

• DETECTION allows
• separation/segregation
• special education
• control care
• UK 1903 special schools for feebleminded
• 1908 a Royal Commission on feeble-minded
• 1913 Mental deficiency act
• France
• 1904 Ministry of Public Education inquiry

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Measuring intelligence

• Early attempts at physical measures
• Galton 3d for sensory-physiological tests
• Cattell grip strength, RT etc
• Wissler found correlations were near zero
• not effective

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• Alfred Binet (1857-1911)
• Task identify feebleminded
• measuring things that require intelligence
• 1905 Binet Simons Scale of Intelligence
• 30 tests
• Recognising food
• Follow simple orders
• Name pictures of objects
• Order 5 weights
• 1908 version assign age levels to tasks
• 1911 Stern mental age/chronological age 100
  IQ

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Binets cautions

• refrained from giving meaning to the score
• a practical device
• measuring does not guarantee independent
  existence of an entity
• to identify so as to help and improve.... a
  theory of limits (Gould, 1982)
• (And a caution on Binet much else in psychology
  besides this)

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Binets importance

• Method of examining child that is not
• medical
• or
• pedagogical
• but
• PSYCHOLOGICAL
• new domain of expertise, new experts
• Separate ability from instruction

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Exporting testing

• In the USA
• Psychologys social circumstances and the
  ideologies of pragmatism and functionalism
  required a professional applied psychology
  Leahey, 2004.

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Goddard

• Goddard
• 1908 discovers Binets tests
• 1910 reports tests of 400 US children
• classification system e.g. moron
• 20,000 tests distributed between 1910-14
• genetic notion of intelligence (after Galton
  etc)
• fear of inferior immigrants not mentally
  defective
• Ellis Island
• substantially revised views in 1928

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Lewis Terman

• Interest in intelligence early 1900s
• 1916 version of Binet test for US schools
• standardization
• Stanford-Binet
• IQ
• Sorting of people .. social control
• welfare of nation
• Hereditarian meritocracy identifying gifted

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In UK

• Charles Spearman (1865-1945)
• 1st Galton Professor of Eugenics
• at UCL in 1911 (succeeded
• by Karl Pearson)
• Worked on tests of general intelligence
• Postulated idea of g in 1923
• Factor analysis and tests
• g and special abilities
• two factor account of human performance

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Cyril Burt (1883-1971)

• Lecturer at Liverpool
• 1913 first official psychologist in the world
  ... London County Council idea of expertise
• Took over Spearmans chair in 1932
• a differential psychology

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Education its legacy

• Intelligence as variable measurable
• Schooling identifying and regulating threat of
  feebleminded . requires detection psychologists
• Tests then reified their object
• intelligence measurable using
• psychological expertise
• ... Psychology creates new ways of thinking
  and new categories for thinking

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2. War

• US pre-1918
• testing of immigrants
• testing in education
• But in 1917 came army tests

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Army testing(see e.g. Kevles, 1986, Carson, 1993)

• Robert Yerkes (Harvard Prof President of APA)
• Idea that psychology might contribute to war
  effort testing of recruits
• US especial concern over utility of knowledge
• e.g. Thorndike importance of science in
  producing a modern, progressive society (Smith,
  p597)

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• Conscription in 1917 a unique opportunity
• eliminate incompetent
• assist selection of competent for officer
  training
• produce balance across units
• 1.75 million tested
• changed testing procedure profoundly

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Committee on psychological examination of recruits
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Tests short, group administered
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Findings

• Army alpha and beta
• Graded A-E ... C- indicated an ordinary
  private
• Psychology (apparently?) contributing to war
• Borings analysis of 160,000 tests
• mental age of average American c.13 years
• differences between immigrant groups
• e.g. Poles under 11 years
• Negro at 10.41

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• Tests A failure for military but
• fuelled concerns about national stock
• eugenics rears its head
• the effort to create an ideally suitable
  laboratory chimpanzee may prove useful to those
  who are seeking an ideal for mankind. One is led
  to think at once of generally recognized human
  shortcomings, such as extreme selfishness,
  dishonesty, slothfulness, cruelty, and to wonder
  whether by developing an ape notable for its
  dependability, trustworthiness, consideration of
  others, measure of self-control, and
  cooperativeness, and by exhibiting it extensively
  and impressively, attention might not be focused
  on the problem of improving human nature and the
  possibilities of its solution. Possibly such an
  exhibit, carried to mankind pictorially and
  verbally, might shame a portion of our kind into
  resolving to do something about it instead of
  continuing to be carelessly fatalistic. The
  really important things for us at present are
  recognition and active acceptance of the
  principles of modifiability, controllability, and
  consequent improvability, of human nature
  (Yerkes, 1943, p. 9-11).

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• After war Yerkes reports receiving requests from
  all sorts of quarters for the tests
• Prompted extension of test idea to areas such as
  personality
• Cattell (1922) put Psychology on the map
• because the tests established idea of
• psychology as the expertise of efficient human
  management (Smith, 1997, p. 599)

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So

• measurement by these tests was not
• within laboratory
• concerned with universal mind
• divorced from social norms
• Instead
• external to lab
• made intelligence a measurable entity
• individual differences were a central concern
• concerned with behaviours and social norms
• concerned with differences, distributions popn
• intimately linked to areas of politics
  governance

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So where are we?

• Usual story?
• Psychology philosophy of mind physiological
  methods
• An academic discipline
• concerned with truth
• explaining normality
• characteristics of a lab-based, experimental
  science
• practical value a spin-off
• explaining abnormality also a spin-off

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But history of psychology of individual
differences suggests

• Importance of method, category, social conditions
  
• Not isolated search for truth but a search for
  practical expertise - tho claim to scientific
  credibility is important
• Created new ways of identifying regulating
  people thinking about intelligence
• Psychology was enmeshed in issues of governance
  how to identify ineducable, how to get best from
  population

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And so .?

• To the extent we view psychology as being defined
  by its history
• gives a different view of what psychology
  was and IS
• in what ways?