Chapter 11 – historical uses and abuses of intelligence testingMotivation for Intelligence TestingBroca’s CraniometryBroca and DarwinCriticisms of BrocaAlfred Binet (1857-1911)Alfred BinetBinet’s Early EducationStudies of HypnosisBinet’s Research on CognitionBinet’s Test of IntelligenceTest QuestionsRevised Binet-Simon ScaleIQ ScoresTesting SpreadsHenry H. Goddard (1866-1957)Goddard’s StudiesGregor Mendel (1822-1884)Mendel’s FindingsExample Using Pea Blossom ColorMendel is Rescued from ObscurityThe Kallikak FamilyFamily TreeCriticisms of Goddard’s StudyPictures of KallikaksEugenic SterilizationGoddard at Ellis IslandGoddard’s InnovationsSlide 29Eugenics DemonstratorsGoddard and Gifted ChildrenLewis M. Terman (1877-1956)Terman’s Stanford-Binet IQ TestTerman’s Studies of GeniusRobert Mearns Yerkes (1876-1956)Army Alpha & Beta TestsTest RequirementsResults of Army TestingDissenting VoicesLater ControversiesCurrent TrendsCurrent Trends (Cont.)CHAPTER 11 – HISTORICAL USES AND ABUSES OF INTELLIGENCE TESTINGDr. Nancy AlvaradoMotivation for Intelligence TestingIn schools, the first intelligence tests were developed in France to enable public schools to measure children for proper grade placement.Rural schools were primarily one-room with all ages taught by a single teacher.Schools in cities were stratified by academic accomplishment (not age as is now done).Children moving to large cities needed to be placed.Other, concurrent efforts focused on measuring intelligence as an individual difference.Broca’s CraniometryBroca measured the body to understand its functions, including the head.He equated a larger head with greater intelligence and concluded that men were more intelligent than women because their heads were larger.He concluded that the sex difference was greater in contemporary people than in the past.His assumptions exemplified the biases of the times, against women, the elderly, primitive people – he believed differences in brain sizes supported them.Broca and DarwinBroca used ideas from Darwin’s evolutionary theory to support his thinking.“I would rather be a transformed ape than a degenerate son of Adam.”Broca believed that men struggle to survive whereas women are protected, so bigger brains are selected for in men but not women.Broca’s work was cited to justify denying education to women.Criticisms of BrocaStephen Jay Gould pointed out that brain weight decreases with age – the women studied were older than the men, introducing a confound.Taking cause of death into account, Gould concluded that there is probably no difference in brain weight between men and women.A man of the same height would have the same size brain as a woman of that height.The sample size for prehistoric brains is too small (7 male and 6 female brains).Alfred Binet (1857-1911)Binet developed the first psychological scales to measure intelligence, supplanting earlier attempts using physical measures and subjective judgments.Informal, subjective assessments may be correct or wrong, but are prone to prejudice and cause trouble when people place excess confidence in them.An important result of Binet’s work was replacement of these haphazard and prejudiced methods with standard, uniform, objective methods of assessment.Alfred BinetBinet’s Early EducationBinet read Darwin, Galton & John Stuart Mill – he was a self-taught library psychologist.This deprived him of interaction with others and training in critical thinking.Binet accepted a staff position at La Salpetriere working with Charcot as his mentor.Charcot used circular reasoning – people who could be hypnotized had unstable nervous systems – as evidence of this, they could be hypnotized.Binet accepted Charcot’s reasoning without question.Studies of HypnosisBinet and Fere claimed that hypnotic phenomena could be transferred from one side of the body to the other using magnets.They also reported “polarization” in which a red hallucination would turn green with use of a magnet.They believed the magnetic field was responsible.Patients had full knowledge of what was expected so the expts were poorly controlled and carelessly conducted. Ultimately they had to admit their errors.Hypnotizability was not necessarily linked to hysteria.Binet’s Research on CognitionBinet was humiliated and became obsessively concerned with suggestibility in experiments.He became increasingly withdrawn and more shy.Studying his own children, he published 3 papers describing their cognitive development.He devised a number of tests of their thinking.These studies anticipated Piaget’s work – Piaget later worked with Binet’s collaborator, Simon, analyzing the wrong answers children gave on intelligence tests.In 1891 at the Sorbonne, he did a variety of studiesBinet’s Test of IntelligenceIn 1882, a law established mandatory primary education for children from 6 to 14 years old.A national system of exams had been established to select students for secondary and university education and vocational schooling.Competition was intense, with 969 applicants to 1 opening at university (compared to 290 to 1 in the US).Concern about “retarded” children in the schools (children unable to learn in school) motivated interest in a systematic way of identifying them.Test QuestionsBinet & Simon developed 20 subtests and investigated a variety of other measures and relationships between them.They concluded craniometry had little value.Tests included: association tests, sentence completion, themes on a given topic, picture descriptions and memory tests, object drawing and description, digit repetition and other memory and attention tests, tests of moral judgment.They carefully specified controlled testing conditions.Revised Binet-Simon ScaleThey administered their tests to larger numbers of schoolchildren and a small number of retarded children, to develop norms.In 1908, they developed a revised scale consisting of 14 of the original tests, 7 modified, 33 new tests.Tests were arranged according to age levels from 3-13The average 5 year old should score at a mental level of 5. If a majority (75-90%) passed a test it was assigned to that age level.Binet and Simon rejected the concept of mental age.IQ ScoresThey believed that even retarded children could raise their mental levels and devised a