measuring differences: gould and hancock et al

Question 1

gould sample?

Answer 1

yerkes’ study took place in 1917

and studied 1.75 million US army recruits

Question 2

yerkes sample?

Answer 2

1.75 million US army recruits

he had persuaded the military to allow him to fund iq testing for all recruits to decide who was ‘suitable’ for officer training

Question 3

yerkes procedure?

Answer 3

devised 3 tests:
army alpha test (for literate)
army beta test (for illiterate and those who failed alpha)
one-to-one spoken tests (for those who failed beta test)

graded A-E and then given military placement according to this

Question 4

yerkes army alpha test?

Answer 4

supposed to take <1 hour, 8 parts

test 1: following oral instructions
test 2: arithmetic problems 
test 3: 'common' sense 
test 4: synonyms antonyms 
test 5: disarranged sentences 
test 6: number sequence completion 
test 7: analogues 
test 8: information, complete sentances

Question 4

yerkes army alpha test?

Answer 4

supposed to take <1 hour, 8 parts

test 1: following oral instructions
test 2: arithmetic problems 
test 3: 'common' sense 
test 4: synonyms antonyms 
test 5: disarranged sentences 
test 6: number sequence completion 
test 7: analogues 
test 8: information, complete sentances

Question 5

yerkes army beta test?

Answer 5

pictorial test taking <1 hour, 7 parts

test 1: completing mazes
test 2: cube analysis
test 3: X-O series 
test 4: digit symbol, decoding
test 5: number checking 
test 6: picture completion 
test 7: geometrical construction

Question 6

yerkes issues with tests?

Answer 6

designed to measure innate/native intelligence

but many questions were culturally biased, requiring cultural knowledge

this was a problem for those who had recently immigrated

for example, washington is to adams as first is to… second

Question 7

yerkes issues with beta test?

Answer 7

images in beta were specific to american, middle class life, eg gramophones

instructions for beta test were written on the paper

3 tasks were specifically concerned with numbers, and some required counting which was unfair to those without a formal education

many ps would’ve been unfamiliar with pencils

virtually impossible to complete within an hour

Question 8

yerkes issues with administering tests?

Answer 8

camps considered different levels of education as sufficient for alpha test, some only had to claim to be able to read

overestimated literacy so beta test was overwhelmingly in demand, so those who not suited to alpha had to take it

need to ship recruits to europe meant that those who failed the alpha test were unlikely to be recalled, particularly for black recruits, in july none retook

only 1/5 of black recruits who failed beta were tested individually

‘most of the men must have ended up utterly confused or scared shitless’ due to unfamiliar school setting and lack of explanation

Question 9

yerkes analysis?

Answer 9

160,000 recruits were selected and their data was analysed by e.g. boring

converted to a common standard to allow comparison

Question 10

yerkes ‘three facts’?

Answer 10

the average white american has a mental age of 13, at edge of moronity
this was previously thought to be 16

‘fair’ immigrants from western and northern europe were scored as more intelligent than the ‘darker’ people from southern and eastern europe

intelligence correlates with skin colour, with black recruits having an average intelligence of 10.41

Question 11

yerkes’ conclusions?

Answer 11

intelligence is innate and it is possible to grade individuals by the colour of their skin

the average man of most nations could be considered a moron

mental testing of this kind is valid and has wider applications for society

Question 12

gould’s problems with yerkes’ conclusions?

Answer 12

not tests of native intelligence as culturally biased towards american culture

negative correlation between time spent in the country and test score

there was a failure to asses black people properly, yerkes dealt with the fact that black people are less educated by saying they were too stupid to stay in school

‘yerkes had overlooked, or consciously bypassed something of importance’

Question 13

gould’s conclusions?

Answer 13

it is impossible to devise a ‘culture free’ intelligence test

accuses yerkes of scientific racism, using his findings to oppress entire ethnic groups

no scientific evidence for intelligence being genetic, so no reason to argue that it is racially determined

Question 14

yerkes method evaluation?

Answer 14

standardised psychometric testing (form of self report)
attempt to objectively assess intelligence, although this may not be a single measurable quality

data analysis suggests study could be considered a quasi experiment, with ethnic origin as the iv, but if this is the case, the study lacks control

Question 15

yerkes data collected evaluation?

Answer 15

quantitative data collected from test scores that could be converted to grades

boring’s analysis produced group quantitative data for different ethnic groups

this facilitated comparisons but may not have captured a true picture of the individual or groups intelligence

Question 16

yerkes ethicality evaluation?

Answer 16

no informed consent or right to withdraw

conditions of test created stress

no confidentiality as names were on tests

findings were used to create racist immigration policies that trapped thousands in nazi europe

Question 17

yerkes validity evaluation?

Answer 17

test invalid measures of innate intelligence due to the cultural bias

the application of tests also reduced validity, with those unsuited to a certain test having to take it

some recruits failure will have been due to unfamiliarity with pencils

Question 18

yerkes sampling bias evaluation?

Answer 18

very large sample, but ps were all male and from a narrow age range

Question 19

gould link to theme?

Answer 19

links to measuring differences as he points out the need to be extremely careful when it comes to devising and carrying out tests to measure differences

also be aware of cultural biases and potential applications of the results

Question 20

gould link to area?

Answer 20

assumption: all human characteristics can be measured and quantified, measures gathered from one person are different to that of another

it is a review of an attempt to measure and quantify the characteristic of native intelligence, which is condemned

Question 21

hancock method?

Answer 21

self report interviews using the step wise design

content analysis

Question 22

hancock sample?

Answer 22

52 canadian murderers

mean age at sentencing 28.9

all admitted crimes and volunteered for study

14 judged as psychopaths, other 38 control group

Question 23

hancock pcl-r?

Answer 23

hare psychopathy checklist

20 item inventory of perceived personality traits and recorded behaviours

involves semi-structured interview and reviews of official records

ps were assessed by prison psychologists and researchers using pcl-r

clinical diagnosis needs score of >30, only >25 was needed as too few

two groups of similar age and time since crime was committed

10 random files recoded for inter-rater reliability

Question 24

hancock procedure?

Answer 24

interviewer blind to psychopathy status

ps briefed on aim and procedure at the beginning of the interview

ps invited to describe crime in as much detail as possible

interviews lasted ~25 mins, were taped and then transcripted verbatim which were combined to created two corpora

ps prompted using the stepwise procedure that facilitates open questioning

Question 25

hancock text-analysis tools?

Answer 25

wmatrix: analyses parts of speech and semantics

dictionary of affect in language: analyses emotional properties of language (intensity, positivity, imagery)

Question 26

hancock general results?

Answer 26

no difference in the mean number of words between psychopath and non-psychopath interviews

Question 27

hancock instrumental language results?

Answer 27

greater use of subordinating conjunctions in psychopath corpora (1.82%) than in non-psychopath corpora (1.54%)

Question 28

hancock level of needs results?

Answer 28

psychopaths focused more on basic needs while controls on higher-level social needs

Question 29

hancock emotional language results?

Answer 29

psychopaths used more past tense forms of verbs

used less positive or emotionally intense language than controls

used more callousness and a lack of empathy

also less fluent, using 33% more disfluencies

Question 30

hancock conclusions?

Answer 30

psychopaths…

view crimes as logical outcomes of a plan

focus on physiological needs

are less emotional and more detached from their crimes

Question 31

hancock method evaluation?

Answer 31

stepwise interviews gave detailed and deep data

content analysis was objective as it was done by computer programs (wmatrix and the dal)

experimenter bias may have been present in the areas of the ps language chosen to be analysed, there may have been other differences that were ignored

Question 32

hancock data collected evaluation?

Answer 32

raw qualitative data was detailed but difficult to analyse

quantitative data from analysis meant that group differences could be determined
differences could be tested for statistical significance

Question 33

hancock ethicality evaluation?

Answer 33

no deceit

volunteers used so consent given but unclear whether psychopathy element was disclosed

no physiological harm but recalling crimes may have been destressing

ps briefed before interviews but unclear if this included right to withdraw

confidentiality ensured

Question 34

hancock validity evaluation?

Answer 34

ecological validity high as describing own crimes

step-wise interview avoids leading questions so responses more valid

lack of demand characteristics as ps unaware of aims but may have been subject to social desirability

some interviewed over 10 years after crime so recall may be faulty

hare’s pcl-r valid but changing the score ps needed to be psychopaths may invalidate conditions

linguistic analysis tools valid

Question 35

hancock sampling bias evaluation?

Answer 35

only 14 psychopaths makes generalising beyond sample difficult

however overall sample of 52 is relatively big

ethno and andro -centric due to all male and all canadian sample

volunteer nature of sample means they could be seen as atypical

Question 36

hancock link to theme?

Answer 36

links to measuring differences as hancock suggests it is possible to carry out quantitative and objective analysis of people’s speech

more specifically, measuring the differences between psychopaths and non-psychopaths

Question 37

hancock link to area?

Answer 37

assumption: all human characteristics can be measured and quantified, measures gathered from one person are different to that of another

hancock shows a quantifiable way to measure the characteristics of a people’s speech to determine the differences between groups (psychopaths and non-psychopaths)

Question 38

gould and hancock similarities?

Answer 38

both were androcentric, only studying males

both happened in institutional settings

Question 39

gould and hancock differences?

Answer 39

control, yerkes’ study happened under varying settings, whereas the procedure was the same for all of hancock’s participants

sample size, yerkes had a sample of 1.75 million and hancock had a sample of 52 (with an experimental group of 14)

Question 40

hancock adding to understanding?

Answer 40

adds to understanding of measuring disorders as suggests an alternative to ps completing questionnaires to obtain scores to measure their differences

instead, uses programs to objectively obtain data on the differences between the groups

however still requires the experimenter to instruct the program on what to measure