CHAPTER 11 – HISTORICAL

USES AND ABUSES OF

INTELLIGENCE TESTING

Dr. Nancy Alvarado

Motivation 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 Binet

Binet’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 studies

Binet’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 system of

training for the retarded (like Montessori’s).

Louis Stern introduced the concept of mental quotient as

a ratio of chronological age to mental age.

A score below 1 indicated retardation, a score above 1

indicated superior intelligence, x 100 = IQ score.

Binet and Simon strongly opposed this concept of IQ.

Despite their objections, IQ became the standard

way of depicting performance on intelligence tests.

Testing Spreads

The Binet-Simon scale was easy to administer and

reasonably brief, so was quickly in wide use.

By WWI in 1914 the tests were being using in a

dozen countries, often simply translated without any

attempt to standardize them for the new setting.

Before the end of WWI, 1.7 million inductees to the

US Army had been tested.

Terman revised the scale for use in the US and 4

million children were tested.

Henry H. Goddard (1866-1957)

In 1984, the editors of Science named development

of the IQ test as one of the 20 most significant

discoveries in science, technology & medicine of the

20th century.

Henry Goddard and Lewis Terman were the two

men primarily responsible for introducing the IQ test

to America.

Goddard earned a doctorate at Clark University,

then was appointed research director of a New

Jersey home for 230 “feeble-minded” children.

Goddard’s Studies

Goddard became convinced of the need for a way

to distinguish between normal and feeble-minded

children, and a reliable way to identify levels.

He was given a copy of the Binet-Simon test in Europe.

He translated the scale into English, with some minor

changes, such as names of coins.

He administered the test to 400 children at

Vineland and 2000 in NJ public schools. The scores

at Vineland agreed with their records.

The scores of public school kids varied widely.

Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)

Hothersall reviews Mendel’s work to put the study

of the Kallikak’s into perspective.

Mendel did the first systematic experiments studying

genetics and heritability of characteristics.

First Mendel bred wild mice with albinos to see

what color coats they would have, then bred bees.

Next he bred peas to study blossom color, smooth

or wrinkled seeds, green or yellow seeds, tall or

dwarf plants – 10,000 plants, 300,000 peas.

His work established valid principles of inheritance.

Mendel’s Findings

First he bred tall & short plants – the resulting

hybrids were all tall.

Next he bred hybrids with each other – most were

tall, a minority were short.

He guessed that height was controlled by two genes

(one from each parent).

Tall height was dominant, short

recessive.

His ideas did not catch on and his

papers were burned.

Example Using Pea Blossom Color

Results across multiple generations

Mendel is Rescued from Obscurity

William Bateson published “Mendel’s Principles of

Heredity: A Defence” (1902). Dutch botanist Huge

de Vries also described Mendel’s work.

Goddard read De Vries’ report and applied it to

intelligence – a major leap influenced by Galton’s

reports of hereditary genius.

Goddard discovered that many of the siblings of

the inmates of his institution had themselves been

evaluated as feeble-minded.

The Kallikak Family

Deborah Kallikak was found to have a mental age

of 9 (at age 22). Goddard traced her ancestry

back to Martin Kallikak Sr. in the Amer. Revolution.

Deborah was descended from an illegitimate liaison

with a feeble-minded barmaid, starting the “bad

side” of the family tree, full of “riff-raff.”

Later Martin married a Quaker woman and

founded the “good side” of the family tree, which

was found to have little feeble-mindedness.

He concluded that feeble-mindedness is genetic.

Family Tree

A=Alcoholic, Sx=Sexually Immoral, E=Epileptic

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Goddard/chap4.htm

Good side:

496 descendants, 3

degenerate (2 A, 1 Sx)

15 infant deaths

Bad side:

480 descendants,

143 feeble-minded,

33 Sx, 3 E, 24 A,

36 illegitimate, 82

infant deaths

Criticisms of Goddard’s Study

The study took 2 years, which seems short.

Conducted by untrained staff, perhaps biased.

Little objective testing of the relatives – reliance on

reports by family & associates. Position in society

used to infer intelligence, etc.

Criminal behavior and feeble-mindedness were

equated.

Assumption of a single gene for IQ is implausible.

Influence of environment was totally ignored.

Pictures of Kallikaks

Stephen Jay Gould claimed that Goddard tampered with photos to

make them appear less normal. Fancher suggested the publisher

perhaps tried to eliminate blank, staring expressions. Goddard

believed the feeble-minded look normal, so he would have been less

likely to modify them – undercutting Gould’s claim.

Pictures of Deborah

are attractive.

Eugenic Sterilization

Similar studies of the Jukes, the Hill Folk, the Nams,

the Ishmaelites, and the Zeros, reportedly showed

reproduction rates twice those of “normal” families.

Goddard spoke about practical methods for

eliminating “defective people” from the US

population.

Mainstream psychologists supported eugenics, including

Yerkes, Thorndike, Cannon, Terman.

US involuntary sterilization laws were upheld by the

courts & stayed in place until the 1960s.

Goddard at Ellis Island

In 1910, one-third of the US population was foreign

born, raising fears that the US was being swamped.

Teddy Roosevelt appointed a commission to study this.

More recent immigrants were from East & So Europe.

It was feared that immigrants would be an impetus for

development of unions (to keep them out), which would

threaten the US economic system.

New immigrants were Catholic not Protestant.

It was claimed that many immigrants were mentally

defective – 2% were denied entry and sent back.

Goddard’s Innovations

Goddard began using psychological methods and

the number of feeble-minded increased

dramatically – 350% in 1913, 570% in 1914.

Goddard claimed that 83% of Jews, 80 of

Hungarians, 79% of Italians, 87% of Russians were

feeble-minded, based on culturally biased testing.

Restrictive immigration quotas were enacted.

Some people were

considered too inferior to

become citizens – such as

the Irish.

"Now the fact is, that workmen may

have a 10 year intelligence while

you have a 20. To demand for him

such a home as you enjoy is as

absurd ....... How can there be a

thing such as social equality with

this wide range of mental

capacity?" - Goddard, before a

group of Princeton undergraduates,

1919

Eugenics Demonstrators

Goddard and Gifted Children

In 1918, Goddard left Vineland for a position as

director of Ohio State Bureau of Juvenile Research,

then became professor at Ohio State University.

Goddard was hired as consulting psychologist to help

establish classes for gifted children.

Those with IQs above 120 were included.

Goddard advocated enrichment, not rapid promotion.

The program produced long-lasting, positive results.

Lewis M. Terman (1877-1956)

Terman grew up on a farm in Indiana, then was sent

to Central Normal College in Danville to become a

teacher. He earned an M.A. from Univ. of Indiana.

A former student of G.S. Hall helped him obtain a

fellowship to Clark Univ to work with Hall.

Hall disapproved of mental tests so Terman

switched to Edmund Sanford to direct his thesis.

After becoming a high school principal in San

Bernardino, he taught at CSULA (formerly LA

Normal School), then joined Stanford University.

Terman’s Stanford-Binet IQ Test

At Stanford, Terman revised the Binet-Simon, as

described in “The Measurement of Intelligence.”

He used a large standardization sample (2300,

including 1700 children, 200 “defective” and superior,

and 400 adults.

His goal was to make the median chronological and

mental ages coincide, to prevent IQs from changing

across different ages, with an average of 100.

This became the standard measure of intelligence, with

a standardization sample in 1916 of 10,000 people.

Terman’s Studies of Genius

In 1921, Terman began an ambitious longitudinal

study of children with exceptionally IQs of 140+.

The study was continued after his death.

Those participating in the study were called “Termites.”

His findings contradict the stereotype of geniuses as

sickly weaklings interested in nothing but books,

“early ripe, early rot.”

Exceptional performance continued in adult careers.

The sample was unrepresentative, admittedly.

Robert Mearns Yerkes (1876-1956)

Yerkes worked his way through college, then worked

with Munsterberg for this doctorate in comparative

psychology, publishing “The Great Apes.”

He was offered a job and remained at Harvard for his

whole career.

He replaced photos of James, Royce & Palmer with

pictures of great apes – his “philosophers.”

He also worked at Boston State Psychopathic

Hospital, which focused him on the need for better

ways of measuring mental abilities.

Army Alpha & Beta Tests

At the start of WWI, Yerkes organized a meeting to

figure out how psychologists might aid the war.

Yerkes traveled to Canada to study their war

experiences.

They decided to focus on adapting mental

measurement to military needs – IQ testing in the Army.

40 psychologists prepared tests for the Army, to

identify mentally incompetent, classify men by

mental ability and select individual for special

training and extra responsibility.

Test Requirements

Group administration.

Measuring “native wit” not education.

Steeply graded in difficulty – hard enough to tax

those with high ability but easy enough for those of

lesser ability.

Could not take more than an hour and be simple to

score objectively.

Alpha test – for those who are literate, Beta test for

those illiterate or non-English speaking.

Results of Army Testing

Only a minute percentage of inductees were

discharged due to low test scores.

A 900-page report concluded that the average

mental age was 13 years, much lower than assumed

Racist, antidemocratic conclusions were part of

popularized versions of this report.

Goddard proposed a meritocracy based on IQ to

replace our democracy.

Studies blamed non-Nordic immigrants for the low

scores (Brigham). Quotas were established.

Dissenting Voices

In The New Republic, Lippmann lambasted Terman,

Goddard & Yerkes, criticizing the assumption that

IQ tests measure intelligence & mental age is 13.

He stressed differences in early environment and

experiences making comparisons across class/race

meaningless.

Logically impossible for the intelligence of an adult to

equal that of a child. Labeling of kids is contemptible.

Terman’s reply was sarcastic and hostile.

Later Controversies

Cyril Burt’s twin studies – did he fake his data?

No way to know for certain, but Burt’s findings have

been replicated by other researchers.

Debates over social bias in testing arose in the

1940s & 1950s (working class vs upper class).

Debates over racial bias arose in the 1960s with

Arthur Jensen’s claim that IQs cannot be raised.

The Bell Curve (Herrnstein & Murray) in 1994 reignited

debates about racial differences.

Current Trends

Earl Hunt, Robert Sternberg & Howard Gardner

have proposed cognitive approaches studying the

knowledge structures underlying intelligent behavior

Hunt developed the “cognitive correlates”

approach, correlating response times with scores on

cognitive tasks.

Sternberg proposed a “cognitive components”

approach decomposing performance on analogies

into a series of cognitive processes.

Current Trends (Cont.)

Gardner proposed a “theory of multiple

intelligences” based on a decomposition of factors

contributing to performance.

This recapitulates the debate between Spearman and

Thurstone over “g” – a single factor correlating

performance across multiple tests, versus specific skills.

There remain few alternatives to objective, group-

administered standardized tests and intelligence

testing remains controversial today.