Indiviudal Differences Area- Gould Flashcards
Background
Hermes wanted psychology to be considered a science
Believed psychology needed to involve in number and quantification
Interested in mental testing
Needed a large sample of men to test
Yerkes aims
To use mental testing which at the time was only just developing to show that psychology could be as rigorous a science as psyics
Yerkes sample and sampling method
1.75 million men from US military
Opportunity sampling
Design of the 3 mental tests
Alpha: literate recruits took this - based on American culture and history
Beta: illiterate recruits took and those who failed alpha- included writing numbers which those who couldn’t write wouldn’t have been able to do
Individual examination: a spoken test if you failed the beta you’d complete this exam
Problems with the way Yerkes tests were administered
Beta supposed to be for illiterates but you still had to use a pencil
Queues for beta much longer than anticipated, so rules about literate were relaxed so recruits could do alpha instead. Many of these recruits scored 0 and didn’t get the chance to do the beta test
Findings from tests
160,000 cases of data analysed by MR boring
Anything below 16 was considered a moron and white Americans only got 13
Darker people less intelligent than fair people in western and Northern Europe
Black recruits had mental age of 10.41
How results were explained compared to how they could have been
Each man graded and given a job suited to this grade
But they were poorley put together, results were unreliable, there was an investigator bias
How findings were applied and effects of this
No man scoring below a C would be considered for officer training
Used as evidence to restrict immigration
6 million people were denied from entering America
Jewish trying to flee Germany were unable to due to restrictions
What Gould concluded about Yerkes research
Yerkes had overlooked or bypasses something of importance for example illiterate men still relied on pencil work
Systematic errors in test design
Culturally biased as tests were about American culture and history, lead to racial discrimination
Goulding research method & ads and disads
A peer review of yerkes original findings As a process of subjecting an authors work or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the study
Ads- able to re-asses research, offers fresh perspective on what was originally found
Disads- reviewer could be biased, or miss important data
Ethics of Yerkes study
No consent
No withdrawal- could loose Job
Major harm- sent to front line based on results
No debriefed
But not deceived
Ethnocentrism
Not because men taking part came from wide range of backgrounds
But test was because knowledge of American assumed
Internal reliability
Tests were standardised and had same questions
Clear instructions on how tests should have been administered but were never really followed
External reliability
1.75 million is large enough
Construct validity
Not an accurate measure of interlectual ability
Knowledge of American culture required
Someone who took alpha should’ve taken beta
Some not familiar with numbers and shouldn’t have done beta
