Chapter 7 Flashcards
Which of the following was included among Galton’s tests of “intelligence” at his 1884 anthropometric laboratory?
reaction time
A flaw in Galton’s tests of intelligence at the 1884 anthropometric laboratory was the
underlying assumption of a strong correlation between practical intelligence and sensory acuity.
Unlike Wundt and Fechner, who focused on establishing general psychological princi-ples, Francis Galton was interested in developing a psychology that focused on
individual differences.
A psychology that focuses on the measurement and study of variations among people on a psychological characteristic rather than general qualities of that characteristic is known as
psychology of individual differences.
Francis Galton’s formal academic training was primarily in the fields of
medicine and mathematics.
Which of the following is NOT true of Francis Galton’s early life?
He earned the title of senior “wrangler” on the Mathematical Tripos Examination at age 18.
Francis Galton’s first entrée into the British scientific world came primarily through his
African exploration and affiliation with the Royal Geographical Society.
As a young man, Francis Galton was profoundly influenced by
a phrenologist who told him his brain and intelligence were naturally better suited to practical than to academic pursuits.
Francis Galton made important contributions to all of the following fields EXCEPT
geology.
Which of the following books first made a strong case for the inheritance of human psychological characteristics?
Galton’s Hereditary Genius
The fact that physical variables such as height or weight fall into normal distributions when measured in large numbers of people was initially documented by
Adolph Quetelet.
When measurements such as height and weight are collected from large populations, the collective data will invariably show all of the following features EXCEPT
it will demonstrate the effect called regression towards the mean.
If we randomly select 100 people and arrange them in order of height, which of the following pairs will probably show the greatest differences between their two heights?
shortest to second shortest
According to Galton’s data in Hereditary Genius, which kinds of relatives are most likely to share the trait of eminence?
brothers
The idea that the human race may be improved by selective breeding, in much the same manner as animal breeders carefully select for certain traits, is known as
eugenics.
The major purpose for which Galton devised the idea of intelligence tests was to
select the most able young people for eugenic breeding.
Swiss botanist Alphonse de Candolle’s 1872 book History of the Sciences and Scien-tists over Two Centuries was important for all the following reasons EXCEPT
it fully supported the strongly hereditarian position of Hereditary Genius.
Galton’s book English Men of Science is notable today because it was
the first to use the self-questionnaire method to study a psychological problem and to analyze the results statistically.
Francis Galton and Alphonse de Candolle both studied scientific eminence and each a published book on the subject. Although they investigated the same subject matter, Gal-ton emphasized the relative importance of __________ for scientific eminence, while de Candolle placed more importance on __________.
heredity; environment
Galton’s personal conviction that differences in intellectual ability are largely innate arose in part because
in school he found that he could not compete successfully against the very top students, despite his own privileged background.
The phrase nature and nurture was introduced and popularized by
Galton in English Men of Science.
As a result of organizing his data into __________, Galton noticed a pattern he termed regression toward the mean.
scatter plots
When a student scores extremely poorly on one examination but then improves on the next, he or she demonstrates what statisticians call
regression toward the mean.
When there is a complete absence of a relationship between two variables, the regression line representing that relationship will be
horizontal.
Who devised the computing formula now commonly used to calculate correlation coefficients?
Karl Pearson
All of the following are true of Galton’s studies of mental imagery EXCEPT that he
found scientists possessed an extremely vivid visualizing capacity.
When Galton studied his own associations, he discovered that
many dated from childhood and some were embarrassing to recall.
In the 1920s behavioral geneticists realized that research on “separated” twins could be used to determine the “heritability” of any measurable trait, but only if certain condi-tions were met. Which of the following was NOT one of those conditions?
The twins must be dizygotic.
The first major study of separated twins was done in 1937 by a biologist, a psycholo-gist, and a statistician. All of the following are true about this study EXCEPT
the study involved more than 100 twin pairs.
Studies of separated identical twins have had the purpose of measuring the “heritability” of various characteristics including IQ. That heritability figure is defined as the
proportion of the IQ variability within the tested population that was determined by heredity.
In the 1960s British psychologist Sir Cyril Burt published a study on separated twins indicating that nature was much more important than nurture in determining intelli-gence. All of the following statements about Burt’s study are true EXCEPT it
introduced new research techniques that have continued to be employed in later twin studies.
Which of the following has NOT been a problem in conducting a scientifically definitive study of separated identical twins?
finding intelligence tests suitable for administration to close relatives
Which of the following represents the strongest correlation coefficient?
b. +.7
Although Galton is best known to psychologists for his work on behavior genetics, statistical methods, and intelligence testing, he also contributed importantly to
meteorology.
Galton’s word association experiments may well have had an influence on
Sigmund Freud.
Galton justified his neurophysiological approach to intelligence testing with all of the following arguments EXCEPT that
people with quick reaction times also have large vocabularies.
Arthur Jensen relied heavily on the work of __________ in making his argument that Head Start programs have been ineffective because intelligence is primari-ly__________.
Cyril Burt; hereditary
Cyril Burt’s study of separated identical twins was briefly considered to be the best of its kind primarily because of its claim that
its twin pairs had been placed completely randomly in a full range of adoptive fami-lies.
If the educational environments of all children could be made more equal, then the her-itability value for their IQ scores would tend to
increase.
The most definitive estimate of the heritability of intelligence is currently represented by
the Minnesota study (MISTRA)’s estimate of about .70 for a middle-class popula-tion that did not include impoverished or underprivileged subjects.
Leon Kamin has said that his initial questions about Burt’s twin research were aroused because
Burt’s reported results were too theoretically “perfect” to be statistically credible.
Galton’s theories were substantially influenced by all of the following scientists EX-CEPT
John Stuart Mill.
Arthur Jensen’s analysis of the effectiveness of compensatory education programs for inner-city children arose especially great controversy because it
hypothesized that racial differences may have played a role in the disappointing per-formance of African American children.
Galton’s stated arguments in support of his anthropometric tests as measures of intel-lectual ability included all of the following EXCEPT his belief that
children’s poorer performance than adults on these tests was because of their still undeveloped intelligence.
After adopting the concept of “nature and nurture” Galton argued that
in general nature is more important than nurture.
For Galton, the most important goal of an ideal eugenic society would be to
promote breeding among the most gifted young men and women.
