Gould Flashcards
key theme + area
key theme =
area = idividual differences
measurements we use to see differences in people
Intelligence - IQ
Personality - Questionnaires
Psychopathy – Professional testing
Analyse particular behaviours e.g speech and language
history of IQ testing
- first IQ test developed by Alfred Binet and used to identify children who needed ‘special’ education
- A child’s IQ (Intelligence Quotient) was estimated by comparing a child’s performance on various tasks to other children of various ages to calculate their ‘mental age’.
- IQ = Mental Age/ Chronological Age
- We now use norms (comparing individual performance to the average scores of others) to calculate IQ.
intelligence
Our ability and potential to learn, think and problem solve.
Yerkes’ intelligence test
- Our time period is WW1.
- The US want to check their recruits who are joining the army.
- Some of these recruits are immigrants to the country. Some do not speak English very well.
- Yerkes, is assigned with the task to create an IQ test for these recruits.
- It was administered to 1.75 million recruits.
- Those who scored highly would be promoted to higher ranks in the army.
3 tests that were administered by Yerkes
- Test One – The Alpha = A written test for literate recruits.
- Test Two – The Beta = A picture task, for those who could not read.
- Test Three – Spoken examination = For those men who failed the Beta task.
aim
- Psychologist in 1902
- 1915- Wanted to prove Psychology as a science
- Thought mental testing was the best way to prove this
- quantitative data makes something scientific
method
- 1.75 million recruits in WW1
- Opportunity sample
- Quasi Experiment
- IV – Ethnic origin
- DV - Intelligence- average mental age of recruits
who helped create the alpha + beta tests
- lewis terman
- H.H Goddard
testing process
- Literate recruits- completed Alpha first
- Illiterate- straight to Beta tests and didn’t do the Alpha test
army alpha test
Consisted of eight parts – Completion time was less than an hour
What you had to do
- fill in the missing number
- unscramble a sentence
- Analogies
Examples
1. Washington is to Adams as first is to ——
Multiple Choice:
2. Crisco is:
a) patent medicine, b) disinfectant,
beta test
- Designed for those who were illiterate and failed the Alpha test.
- Completion time was less than an hour and given in large groups
- What you had to do
1. picture completion tasks
2. Maze running
3. Cube counting - this test involved 7 parts
- still required men to use pencils and paper - and many had never been educated at all.
spoken examinationn
- for those who failed the beta test
- Marked A+ to E-
- This was then given to rank the soldiers
- Score of C- = low average intelligence Ordinary private rank
problems with testing
- Education history was over predicted and recruits spent less time in school than Yerke’s thought
- Illiterate men were allocated to the Alpha
- Many who failed the Alpha were never recalled to take the Beta
- Recent immigrants and Black men who had not received formal education were particularly disadvantaged
- Many recruits felt exam anxiety so they did not perform at their best
- Spoken exam was never usually given to prove themselves
results - facts from boring
- 160,000 individuals from the 1.75 million were analysed
- The average mental age of white American adults stood at 13 - just above the level of moronity
- It was possible to grade European immigrants by their country of origin.’darker people and slavs’ in Europe were less intelligent.
- Russian 11.34
- Italian 11.01
- Polish 10.74
- Black people scored lowest of all with average mental age of 10.41
- These ‘facts’ were used to provide a genetic explanation for the differences
- As a result 2% of immigrants were allowed to enter the USA between 1924 and WW2 1945
