Gould Flashcards
What did the study examine?
What intelligence is and how it can be measured
What is the basic argument of eugenics for intelligence?
Scientists should identify the useless, the stupid and the weak and prevent or discourage them from having children to improve the genetic stock of the general population
What did yerkes believe?
Intelligence was a fixed quantity
What was the aim of Goulds research?
To expose the fundamental problems involved in previous attempts to measure intelligence
What were the three mental tests Yerkes devised for his experiment?
Army Alpha
Army Beta
Individual examination
What were the tasks for each test?
Alpha - Written tests for literate recruits. Analogies, filling in missing number and unscrambling a scentence
Beta- Pictoral test for illiterate or men who failed the alpha. Running a maze, number work and picture completion task
Individual- Individual spoken test for men who failed the beta
What score warrented the rank of ordinary private?
C- Low average intelligence
What was an issue with the picture test?
Required a knowledge of current American culture
What is meant by native intellectual ability?
Intelligence is unaffected by culture and educational opportunities
Yerkes asserted this is what the test measured
What were the three ‘‘facts’’ Yerkes found?
Average mental age of white american men was 13
Possible to grade european imigrants by their country of origin
Average mental age of black men was 10.4
What were Yerkes conclusions?
There were genetic differences between races
What were some of Goulds critisisms of yerkes procedure?
There was a level of cultural and educational knowledge required
Men who were illiterate were still given the alpha test and so scored 0
Yerkes overestimated literacy of the general population meaning the lines for the beta test were to long leading to inappropriate relocation to the alpha test
Beta test required the use of a pencil which most men had never used
What are some of Goulds evaluations of Yerkes?
Implies intelligence is a fixed characteristic
Study is not very scientific due to the large volume of bias
Heavily dependant on the racist values of Yerkes
