1. History Flashcards
what does understanding the history help us understand?
current practices which may not make sense otherwise. strengths and weaknesses of tests, dangers of misuse of testing can be learned from history.
how long has psychological testing been around?
100 years
How often did the Emperor’s official in China at 2200 BC get tested?
every 3 years
202BC ancient china – what areas did written exams introduced testing for people in?
o Civil law o military affairs o agriculture o revenue o geography
in 1370 what did the ancient china tests consist of?
o Started with day and night in isolation booth writing essays and a poem
o 1-7% passed and went on to 3 sessions of day and night testing
o 1-10% passed and went to Beijing for final round
o 3% passed so were eligible for public office
o original public service exams
What did Hubert von Grashey in 1885 develop?
German physician developed memory tests for brain injured patients
What did Conrad Rieger (German Physician) do?
o furthered tests for brain damaged patients by Hubert von Grashey
o battery took over 100 hours to administer
What was the contribution of psychiatric testing before psychological testing?
Contribution was that standardised procedures could reveal nature and extent of symptoms in brain injured and mentally ill patients
What is physiognomy?
assumes you can judge a person’s inner character from appearance. e.g. straight, thin, fair hair = an is fainthearted, physically weak but quiet and harmless
how far does physiognomy date back?
dates back to Aristotle (384 BC)
when did physiognomy evolve until?
Lavater (1741-1801)
how many published essays were there about physiognomy?
150 editions published
what did the concept of physiognomy believe?
believed you can judge moral character by examining person’s face.
e.g. round face = caring, sensitive with strong sexual fantasies, long term stable partners. square face = analytic, intelligent, decisive, aggressive, dominant. face shapes read with hair types, forehead shape, eyebrows, ears etc
Is research on physiognomy still being conducted?
yes - but more around perceptions associated with faces.
o e.g. mature faces = dominant → attractive in males, not attractive in females
o females with eyes that made them appear less dominant were related as more attractive (Keating, 1985)
what theory followed physiognomy?
PHRENOLOGY
what is phrenology?
reading bumps on head to determine someone’s character
who first suggested a link between the skull and human behaviour (phrenology)?
Gall
what was it that Gall was one of the first to propose?
one of first to propose that brain housed mental capacity
with regard to phrenology, in recent history, what is theb rain and mind seen to share?
only in recent history that brain and mind have been seen to be sharing the same space in body – people thought about brain as physical structure and largely responsible for automated responses but not the subconscious mind (e.g. personalities)
what has debunked phrenology?
Studies of neural networks have debunked phrenology (knight, 2007) as we now have technology to see what happens in brain
is there still support of phrenology?
Yes
what did phrenology give rise to?
the psychograph
what could the psychograph do?
It could do phrenological reading complete with printouts rating 32 mental faculties (1-5)
how much did psychograph owners earn in 1934?
$200 000
currently, what are psychographs c/f when psychographs were first invented?
type of portraiture capturing the true image of any subject’s soul through photography, video, film or illustration. Image is then visually deconstructed by duplicating, overlaying and mirroring the source onto itself, producing a form similar to kaleidoscope
What happened in the late 1800s with regard to instruments?
move away from subjective and introspective methods and into experimental psychology. Testing moved to labs where methods could be replicated
what is the problem with early experimental psychology?
early experimental psychs thought intelligence could be measured by sensory perceptions measured by brass instruments designed to measure sensory thresholds
who discovered psychophysics?
Fechner (1801-1887)
what was Fechner credited with?
scientist credited with introducing the ‘median; into data analysis
what were Fechner’s findings theories based on?
Based on the assumption that the human perceptual system is a measuring instrument yielding results (experiences, judgements, responses) that may be systematically analysed
what does Fechner’s findings impact today?
Underlies much of current day research techniques
Wilhelm Wundt credited with?
Credited with first psych lab in 1879 but was measuring mental process years before that
what did Wundt have?
thought meter’
what was Wundt’s ‘thought meter’?
a calibrated pendulum with needles sticking out that would swing back and forth striking bells with the needles
How would Wundt’s ‘thought meter’ work?
Observer would note pendulum position when bells sounded – he thought the auditory and visual stimuli would be perceived simultaneously – but that was not correct - difference between perceived position and actual proposed to reflect swiftness of thought
what were Wundt’s findings a foundation for?
Foundation of explaining individual differences
Who was Francis Galton a cousin to?
Darwin
What was Galton more interested in?
more interested in problems of human evolution than psychology
what did Galton devise a way to measure for?
devised ways of measuring beauty, personality, efficacy of prayer and how boring lectures were!
what was Galton’s legacy?
His legacy is that he demonstrated clearly that individual differences exist and can be measured with standardised procedures
What did Galton believe in?
he believed in eugenics – e.g. ethnic genocide ☹
what are examples of eugenics as provided by Galton?
o if people had a mental disability – they sterilised them (in a way) to prevent them from having more babies
o thought smart people should breed with smart people and dumb people not to breed at all
who did James McKeen Cattell study with?
Wundt and Galton before going to Columia uni
how long did Cattell spend as a unrivaled Dean of American Psychology?
26 years
what did Cattel use and measure?
Used RT (reaction time) to measure differences in mental reaction. still use things like RT today but also include accuracy in the information
what did Cattell’s testing expand on?
Expanded on Galton’s tests measuring motor skills (e.g., strength of hand, rate of hand movement, degree of pressure to cause pain)
what were Cattell’s research based on?
Based on idea that mental and bodily energy can’t be separated
Who was Clark Wissler?
One of Cattell’s psych students
what is Wissler known for?
Greatest influence on early psych testing as he was the first to use mental test scores to predict academic performance (validity)
what did Wissler demonstrate?
Demonstrated there was no relationship between the mental tests devised by Cattell and Galton with academic achievement and virtually no relationship between the mental tests themselves
what were the issues with Wissler’s theories?
- Psychs turned away from RT and sensory measures but Wissler had a restricted range of participants’ intelligence so correlations would be reduced
- RT unreliable because too few trials measured
- But it did pave the way for more logical tests such as Binet’s & Wechsler’s
what did Wissler move towards as a result of his criticised theories and methods?
Wissler, discouraged, moved to Anthropology, became an environmentalist and focused on explaining differences between ethnic groups
What did Esquirol (1772-1840) first write?
Esquirol (1772-1840) first to write of the differences saying that idiocy (mental retardation) was a lifelong developmental phenomena and dementia (mental illness) usually had an abrupt onset in adulthood
what did Esqirol find when examining the distinction between idiocy and dementia?
the first is biological and cannot be treated or changed but the latter could be improved
what did Esquirol believe about idiocy?
it was incurable and the latter could be improved
what did Esquirol use to differentiate between levels of retardation?
Used language to differentiate between levels of retardation (short phrases, monosyllables, cries with no speech)
what did Seguin help to establish?
Helped establish the new humanism toward people with an intellectual disability
who were other contributors to the theory of humanism?
Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers
what is the theory of humanism?
people can reach their full potential
what did Seguin establish?
Developed educational programs and an experimental class
why did Seguin develop education programs?
“if somebody has an intellectual disability, they struggle to survive in a class of normal people” hence developed these programs
What, specifically, did Seguin look at when performing experiments?
Looked similar to current behaviour modification
What was it that Alfred Binet first establish?
first to establish modern intelligence tests
why did Binet change to psychology from medicine?
Binet was in medicine but had a breakdown and swapped to psychology
why is Binet so careful with the design of his experiments which makes his tests so advanced?
Early methodological errors led him to be very careful of design by the time his intelligence tests were developed
what did Binet pionee?
Individual psychology
what is individual psychology?
all about individual and individual differences
who did Binet use as subjects?
Using his daughters as subjects he learned that attention and suggestion were important variables when studying children
what did Binet argue in 1896?
1896 argued that intelligence could be better measured by higher order mental processes rather than sensory processes like RT
Who was Binet hired by in 1904 and why?
Hired by French government in 1904 to identify children who would struggle to learn in an ordinary classroom
How did Binet’s 1905 differ from his previous tests?
o Aim was classification, not measurement, so used 30 different tasks to assess general mental development
o Brief and practical to administer (less than an hour)
o Measured practical judgment not low level sensory, motor
o Items arranged by level of difficulty, not content type, and standardised with intended population and ‘normal’ kids
why was the first IQ test created?
created in response to practical needs
prior to the first IQ test, what was there little attention paid to?
Prior to the first IQ test little attention paid to children who were intellectually challenged
what did the first IQ test lead to?
A new humanism toward such people was evolving following centuries of persecution, torture, ignoring or burning (witches)
• E.g., 1698 text called Flagellum Salutis advocated beatings for melancholia, epilepsy, paralysis etc
how many items did the 1908 Binet-simons test have?
58 items or tests
are the versions of the Binet-Simons tests still used?
Yes
e.g., reconstructing scrambled sentences, following a sequence of instructions
who translated Binet-simon;s test?
Goddard
what did Goddard test?
Testing 1547 normal children he found 3% ‘feebleminded’ and advocated they be segregated so as not to “contaminate society
What did Goddard decided immigrants on Ellis island as?
“feebleminded degenerates [who] reproduced at an alarming rate and menaced the nations overall fitness”
Why do most books ignore Goddard?
- He was a ‘heriditarian’ who called for colonisation of morons to restrict their breeding
- Insisted crime, alcoholism, prostitution was due to inherited mental deficiencies
- Claimed the average intelligence of immigrants was below 12 “perhaps of moron grade”
- Favoured deportation of low IQ immigrants or to use them as labourers if “we were wise enough to train them properly”
- His views echoed societal views of the times and he recanted them in 1928
What was the motivation for the development of non-verbal tests?
the Realisation that tests not fair for non-English speakers
what is a popular test still used today?
• The 10 block depression board (1913) still used by blindfolded participants in the Halstead-Reitan neurological test battery
who was Howard Knox?
Howard Knox, a physician on Ellis Is, worked hard to develop non-verbal tests suitable to immigrants
what did Howard Knox agree with Goddard with?
He agreed with Goddard that people failing the tests should be deported
how did Knox further Goddard’s suggestion?
recognised that some immigrants were traumatised rather than intellectually deficient
where was the Porteus maze test developed?
developed at the University of Hawaii by Stanley Porteus who was Australian
what is the porteus mazt test supposed to measure?
Is meant to measure frontal lobe functioning (e.g., planning, impulsivity)
what is the main process of the Porteus maze test?
starts simple and becomes more complex
How did Louis Terman expand on the Binet-Simon test?
then Terman, at Stanford, developed the intelligence quotient (IQ), altered the tests for an American audience and called them the Stanford-Binet (1916)
what is the latest revision of the Stanford-Binet test?
2003 (5th edition)
what did Weschler develop?
a rival test that provided a full IQ score, verbal and performance IQ scores and 10-12 subset scores as opposed to Stanford-Binet’s single score (that’s changed now)
Why did group tests emerge?
because individual tests are so labour intensive.
• The US entering WW1 in 1917, Robert Yerkes convinced the US army that its 1.75 million recruits needed to be tested for classification
• Led by Yerkes, but also including Terman and Goddard, they developed the Army Alpha and Army Beta tests
what did the Army Alpha tests consist of?
consisted of 8 verbally loaded tests for average to high-functioning recruits. Recruits were to follow oral directions, arithmetic, practical judgment, antonym-synonym pairs, disarranged sentences, number series, analogies, information
what did the beta tests consist of?
non-verbal for illiterates and those for whom English was not first language. e.g. Mazes, block designs, 3 dimensional drawings
how were results used in the group, army alpha and army beta tests poor?
They had no validity, poor instructions, inadequate facilities for administration and were used to support some high ranking officers
how were results used in the group, army alpha and army beta tests arguable used?
Arguably used as a tool of prejudice and racism
what was the reason for differences in test results of the group, army alpha and army beta tests?
language difficulties
when were education tests established?
after the 1st world war
when was the National Intelligence test developed?
in the 1920s
who was the National Intelligence test administered to?
7 million children in the US
In 1925 the College Board decided to develop?
a scholastic aptitude tests for admissions
what did the 1926 College Board scholastic aptitude tests for admissions later develop into?
the current Scholastic Assessment Tests (US)
How did aptitude tests exceed IQ tests?
Assess more specific abilities than IQ tests
why were aptitude tests needed?
needed in WW2 to isolate skills specific to being a pilot, flight engineer, navigator etc
is the aptitude test still used today?
yes - Still widely used in the military
what is an example of a personality and vocational test?
Woodsworth personality data sheet (1919)
what was Woodsworth personality data sheet (1919) used for?
Woodsworth personality data sheet (1919) used to isolate recruits vulnerable to psychoneurosis
what was the structure of Woodsworth personality data sheet (1919)?
116 forced choice format questions
what was the main weakness of the Woodsworth personality data sheet (1919)?
it was easy to fake good as questions obvious e.g., Are you bothered by feeling that things are not real therefore, wanting to avoid service, a normal person could fake bad
what followed the Woodsworth personality data sheet (1919) and why was it better?
Thurstone’s Personality Schedule followed which was more statistically reliable
What test did Yoakum develop and why?
Yoakum’s Carnegie Interest Inventory (1919-1920) developed to help in counselling and guidance of ‘normal’ people
What did Galton test in 1800s?
Word association
what did Galton’s word association tests consist of?
4 seconds to come up with as many words associated with the stimulus word
What did Jung in 1910 bring association tests into?
to fruitions which comprosed 100 words
what did the American and Swiss develop tests for?
Americans were working on objective tests while Rorschach (Swiss) developed tests to reveal unconscious thoughts and feelings (1920)
