I - Gould Flashcards
Background
In 1904, Binet and Simon were commissioned by the French government to devise a test which would identify those children who wouldn’t benefit from ordinary schooling because of their inferior intelligence. The result was the Simon-Binet test (1905), generally accepted as the first intelligence test.
In 1910, Terman at Stanford University began adapting the Simon-Binet test for use in the USA. The test became known as the Stanford-Binet test. It has been revised and modified numerous times since.
Aim
This Core Study aimed to examine the early history of intelligence testing as conducted by Yerkes on amy recruits in the USA during WW1 Gould aimed to identify the following issues in psychology:
The problematic nature of psychometric testing in general and the measurement of intelligence in particular
The problem of theoretical bias influencing research in psychology, in particular how psychological theories on the inhented nature of intelligence and the prejudice of a society can dramatically distort the objectivity of intelligence testing.
The problem ofthe political and ethical implications of research, in this case the use of biased data to discnminate between people in suitability for occupation and even admission to a country
Method/Design
The Gould study is not a piece of empirical research. It is important to be aware that the article is an edited extract from Gould’s (1981) book,
‘The Mismeasure of Man’ in which he traces the history of the measurement of human intelligence from nineteenth century craniology (the
measurement of skulls) to today’s highly technical and sophisticated methods of IQ testing.
The study is therefore a review article that looks at the history of Robert M. Yerkes’ intelligence testing of recruits for the US army in WW1, and his
attempt to establish psychology as a scientific discipline.
Sample
1.75 million army recruits in the USA during WW1. The recruits included White Americans, ‘Negroes’ and European immigrants
Procedure
From May to July 1917, Yerkes, together with a number of colleagues who shared his views on the hereditary nature of intelligence, wrote the army mental tests. Together they developed three types of test, the first two of which could be given to large groups and took less than an hour to complete.
THE ARMY ALPHA TEST
This was designed for literate recruits. It consisted of eight parts. It included items with which we are totally familiar as part of intelligence testing: analogies, filling in the next number in a sequence etc. It required a good basic understanding of English language skills and literacy. Although the tests were considered by Yerkes to measure ‘native intellectual ability (intelligence that is not influenced by education and/or culture), they were in fact extremely biased. After all, how could someone who was unfamiliar with American culture achieve a decent score? The following examples give some idea of the type of questions asked:
Washington is to Adams as first is to
Crisco is a patient medicine, disinfectant, toothpaste, food product?
The number of kaffir’s legs is 2, 4, 6, 8?
Christy Matthewson is famous as a writer, artist, baseball player, comedian?
Army Beta Test
This was a test designed for people who were illiterate or failed the Army Alpha Test. It had seven parts and consisted of picture completion tasks
The pictures were again culturally specific and would have been extremely difficult to complete if participants had no knowledge of some of the items. There were also maze tests, counting the number of cubes, finding the next in a series of symbols and translating numerals into symbols using a code to work from.
The instructions were written (in English), in three of the seven parts the answers had to be given in writing, yet this was a test for illiterates who may never have held a pencil beforehand!
If recruits failed on the other two tests, they were supposed to be given an individual spoken examination, this however rarely happened. Every individual was given a Grade from A to E, with plus and minus signs e.g. C-indicated a lowaverage intelligence, suitable for the position of ordinary private in the amy. D indicated a person rarely suited for tasks requiring special skill, forethought, resourcefulness or sustained alertness.
Administration of the tests caused numerous problems:
Recruits who were illiterate should immediately have been assigned to the Beta Test, or given it if they failed the Alpha test, but this only happened in some camps. Therefore illiterate or immigrant recruits often sat the Alpha Test and came out scoring next to nothing.
In fact the levels of literacy amongst Americans, especially black Americans, were much lower than Yerkes anticipated and this confounded the problems further.
Queues for the Beta Test began to build up and this led to an artificial lowering of standards by the administrators in order to reallocate more men to the Alpha Test. In some camps, the minimum level of schooling was sufficient to warrant sitting the Alpha test, whereas in others the recruits had to achieve a certain grade.
Besides these inconsistencies in administration, further problems arose with men, especially black men, who failed the Alpha Test not being allowed to re-sit the Beta Test.
Only one fifth of those who failed the Beta Test were allowed to take the individual examinations.
Results
The average mental age of white, American, adult, males stood just above the edge of moronity at a shocking and meagre 13. (Teman had previously set the standard at 16.) This indicated that the country was ‘a nation of morons’ and as such was taken by the eugenicists to show that the poor, Negroes and feeble-minded had been interbreeding and lowering the overall intelligence of the population.
The data also showed that European immigrants could be graded by their country of origin with the darker people of Southem Europe and the Slavs ofE astem Europe being less intelligent than the fair people of Westem and Northem Europe.
The black man had an average mental age of 10.41. However the lighter the skin colour. The higher the score.
Conclusions
IQ tests are culturally and historically biased:
IQ tests do not measure innate intelligence.
IQ testing is often unreliable.
IQ tests may not produce valid results.
Inappropriate, poorly administered IQ tests can lead to tragic consequences.
Nations can be graded by their intelligence.
America is a nation of morons!
Method Evaluation
+It allows an independent person to evaluate the research that has been carried out to see if there are any flaws with the research and in this case there clearly was!
-Reviewing somebody else’s research can still be open to interpretation and the researcher is not actually carrying out the research themselves so secondary data can be misinterpreted.
Method used by Yerkes-Psychometric testing
+ Huge amount of quantitative data collected which was seen to objectively measure intelligence at the time.
- Assumes that intelligence is fixed and unchanging over time and across different circumstances. Also assumes that intelligence is a distinct and measurable concept again others would argue that it does not exist as a single definable quality.
Validity
Yerkes’ tests were not an accurate way of measuring intelligence, but were more to do with the amount of education the participants had received and their familiarity with US culture.
The intelligence tests lack construct validity due to the ethnocentric nature of the test items.
His ideas are subject to his own personal bias / agenda - Yerkes believed that intelligence was inherited and unaffected by environmental factors and therefore could not be changed (due to nature) therefore his own personal beliefs may have influenced his “scientific testing” of intelligence and skewed the results to show what he wanted them to show (theoretical bias)
Data
Only focusing on quantifying intelligence via fixed choice questions may fail to capture a true picture on an individual’s intellect.
Strength-comparison of results can be made to identify patterns in results e.g used to grade each country on intelligence White American males had a mental age of 13 compared to Black Americans with an age of 10.4.
Weakness- lack of context/explanation of results which can lead to inaccurate conclusions. Intelligence scores not accurate due to test lacking construct validity.
Reliability
The tests were standardised and the different versions were of equivalent difficulty. However, the issue with reliability came with the administration of the tests, which went against what Yerkes’ had designed. Illiterate people often sat only the Alpha Test and as expected scored very low. Literacy levels were lower than expected which led to large queues for the Beta Test. This led to an artificial lowering of standards by administrators in order to sit the Alpha Test. Further problems came to light, in that men, especially black men, who failed the Alpha Test were not allowed to take the Beta Test. Furthermore, only one fifth of those who failed the Beta Test were allowed to take the individual examinations. There was a lack of consistency in testing.
Sampling Bias and Ethnocentrism
1.75 million men took part in the testing. This is clearly a huge sample; however, they were only young males. The sample was also made up of Native Americans and immigrants from a range of backgrounds; thus the research cannot be considered as ethnocentric. However, as we know, the tests themselves were culturally biased and disadvantaged those who were less familiar with American culture.
Ethical Issues
Ethical Issues: The tests were poorly designed and administered, the results led to different ethnic groups being wrongly judged as of low intelligence, which led to the introduction of the Immigration Restriction Act. Consequences of these restrictions were grave - immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe was stopped, which meant that Jews who were fleeing their homeland at the start of WW2 could not be admitted to America, it was thought as many as 6 million were denied entry into the USA between 1924 and the start of war in 1939.
Protection from harm- potential army recruits were tested in stressful conditions.
Informed consent was an issue as the army recruits did not give consent for the data to be used in the way that it was.
Flawed data was used to influence social policy therefore psychologists must consider how the results could be handled by the media or used by the government.
