Intelligence - Alfred Binet, H.H Goddard, Robert Yerkes, Cyril Burt, Charles Spearman, Howe, PDF

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Alfred Binet, H.H Goddard, Robert Yerkes, Cyril Burt, Charles Spearman, Howe, Influences, Steele and Aronson, Sternberg, Kaleidoscope project...

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Intelligence Alfred Binet –  Trying to help those in need  Wanted to identify children needing special education  Solution o Lots of different short tasks o Individual testing by trained examiners  Test used to determine child’s mental age o E.g. a 7 year old who passes the 6 yr old test but fails 7 yr old test is given a mental age of 6  Children with mental age significantly under their own = special education required Stren 192 – IQ = Mental Age / Chronological age x 100 Binet’s fears  Intelligence too complex to capture in a single number  Reified as if a real entity  Assumes it can’t be changed rather than to identify need for help  Assume intelligence inborn  Self-fulfilling prophecy  Used to rank ALL children rather than just identify less able H.H. Goddard  Hereditarian o Intelligence is innate and unchangeable o No special education could ever help  Part of Eugenics movement  Which argued for improving US genetic ‘stock’ through o Euthanasia o Sterilisation o Immigration restriction o Outlawing miscegenation (racial intermarriage)  He invented the ‘moron’ o Under ‘normal’ range of IQ o Previously  If you can’t learn to speak – idiot  If you can’t learn to write – Imbecile  Argued for confining and sterilising morons  Tested 152 immigrants on Ellis Island o Italians, Hungarians, Jews, Russians

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Italians: 79% morons Hungarians: 80% morons Jews: 83% Morons Russians: 87% Morons

Robert Yerkes  The Army tests o Testing of WW1 recruits  Hereditarians created IQ tests – Goddard, Terman etc  Two test versions o Army Alpha: written exam for literates o Army Beta: Pictorial exam for illiterates o Individual: Recalled for testing alone  Army probably didn’t much use the results  Real use: data on 1.5m men  Popularised results of army testing: o Average mental age: 13 years  Logically absurd  Graded EU immigrants by mental age  Placed the ‘Negro’ at the bottom  BUT Alpha and Beta tests were not equivalent o Black people and immigrants rarely were given the Alpha  Beta didn’t require literacy but did require: o Holding a pencil  Some had never held a pencil before o Recognising and understanding numbers  In 3/7  Instructions were different o Alpha WAYYYYY more detailed  Things that could affect scores o Literacy o Numeracy o Attention o Reassurance & explanation o Anxiety o Perseverance o Self-confidence Sir Cyril Burt  A lot of fraud  Twin studies mainly

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Identical twins reared apart o This would support hereditary over environment Fraud o Originally studied 20 pairs -> eventually studied 50 pairs but correlation stays same to 3 decimal places (statistically impossible) o Made up 2 ‘collaborators’ Tried to rewrite history so HE was the father of factor analysis, not Spearman

Charles Spearman  g for General Intelligence  Correlation of IQ tests  Invented factor analysis o Correlations between lots of things rather than just pairs  Found o High correlations between scores on different IQ tests  Argued IQ is made up of 2 parts o Common properties across all the intelligence tests –  g – General Intelligence o Non-common aspects of each test  s – Specific information  Spearman’s g used to support hereditarian view  Reifications of IQ as a biological entity – Intelligence is a THING

Other reasons for high correlation between tests –  Howe 1997 o Doing well:  Self confidence  Competitiveness  Show-offiness o Doing badly:  Threatened by tests  Tests irrelevant  Culture: don’t put yourself forward 

Don’t believe yourself “unintelligent” o Beliefs  Self-efficacy: IQ not set - I can improve! o Cognitions  Adler: Are your ‘Guiding Fictions’ unhelpful? o Motivation  Maslow: Are lower needs distracting you? o Exposure  Immerse yourself in psychology

o Practice  General study skills  Writing skills  Research skills etc. Can IQ be increased? No 

Hereditarians argued: o Environmental influences don’t change IQ o Schooling doesn’t change IQ o Attempts to raise IQ failed o Attempts are temporary

Howe 1997 1998  Demonstrates IQ has been increased o Adoption studies o Intervention studies o More schooling o Generational changes o Motivational influences o Training on IQ tests  Adoption studies  Deprived kids were put into middle class homes o Average IQ gain of 20 IQ points above biological parents and siblings o Capron & Duyme 1989  Intervention studies o Project head start (1960)  Varied length and organization o Many impressive increases in IQ  Zigler & Muenchow 1992 – 10 IQ points in one summer  More schooling = higher IQ Generational changes  The Flynn Effect  IQ tests ‘re-standardised’ over the years o To keep the average at 100  Flynn 1999 looked at real improvements of IQ between generations o We have all become more intelligent over time Motivational influences  Can affect IQ scores

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Johnson, Bradley-Johnson, McCarthy & Jamie (1984) Gave black inner city kids tokens for toys for each correct test answer Raised IQ scores by 13 points Sinnott, Hilton, Wood, Spanos and Toel 2016 o Tested undergraduates o Found significant positive correlations  Motivation & overall IQ  Motivation & verbal IQ  Motivation & performance IQ

Stereotype threat  Steele and colleagues  Groups being judged & treated stereotypically  This affects their performance  Stereotyped: Worried about: being judged/treated stereotypically/confirming stereotype: performance interference

Steele and Aronson 1995

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Widely replicated IQ/Aptitude test for African American/Hispanic groups Maths ability for women Showed some subtleties: o Ethinc minorities  High stakes testing for top jobs and scholarships

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Gender o Maths ability not so universally relevant to hiring Implicit vs explicit threat cues o Implicit  E.g. just priming group membership or emphasising that test is diagnostic o Explicit  E.g. actually telling them their group does poorly on the test Identification – how far self esteem is tied up with what the test tests o High vs low identification

Sternberg (2015)  Argued that standard IQ tests too narrow to predict success o At university o In life  Proposed also testing o Creative skills o Producing new ideas  Analytical skills o Evaluating ideas o Practical skills o Putting ideas into practice & convincing others o Wisdom-based skills o Using knowledge/skills for good  

Rainbow Project Kaleidoscope Project

Rainbow project  13 US colleges (N=793)  Used the usual o Standardised tests e.g. stats o Grade Point Average (GPA)  Plus o Additional tests of  Creative, analytical and practical skills o Using unusual response formats, e.g.  Navigate through a map  Write a short story  Dealing with a problem in a video scenario  Findings o In simple correlations, SATs/GPA/Rainbow all predict Year 1 GPA

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But more complex analysis showed o Only high school HPA predicted UG GPA on its own o But prediction doubled if added in rainbow measures compared to SATs o Plus, rainbow measures shrank ethnic group differences

Kaleidoscope project  Sternberg became Dean of Arts & Sciences at Tufts University  From 2006 to time of publication (2015) o 15,000 students per year  Usual tests/measures, plus o Essay (optional)  Assessed for Creative, Analytical & Practical skills and for Wisdom o Other evidence of creativity  E.g. Portfolio, prizes/awards  Findings o Year 1  Half completed essay o Since then  2/3 complete essay  Quality of essay/other Kaleidoscope measures o Improved chance of admission  A for Kaleidoscope measures = twice chance of admission compared to non-A  Plus o Ethnic differences disappeared!...