Psych Overview: U3 Ch. 7 Flashcards
Four Reasons why Galton was a great pioneer.
a. His theories provided several positive foundations on which others could build.
b. Tests could be used to measure psychological differences among people.
c. He offered provocative theories about the origins of those psychological differences and prescribed controversial social policies intended to foster positive psychological qualities in the general population.
d. He elevated the scientific study of individual differences to the level of a major psychological specialty with important social implications.
The most distinctive human characteristics
intellectual and psychological in nature-although presumably mediated by small inheritable differences in the structure of the brain and nervous system
Galton’s Book
Hereditary Genius (1869)
what were the three “new arguments” that supported the contention?
i. Normal distribution of intellectual qualities
ii. The specific patterns of eminent relatives Galton most frequently observed
iii. The comparison of adoptive versus biological relatives.
A bell-shaped distribution that occurs when more statistical data fall in the middle ranges than at the extremes and when successive scores tend to be more widely separated from one another at the extremes.
A normal Distribution
He examined family trees of twelve groups of eminent people and found two general patterns throughout
i. Eminent relatives of eminent people tended to be close rather than distant
ii. Imperfect but clear tendency for relative to excel in the same fields.
Galton’s “second new line of argument (pedigrees of genius)
He acknowledged but minimized the possibility that environmental advantages within eminent families could have helped produce his results, insisting that “social advantages are incompetent to give eminent status to a man of moderate ability.”
Galton’s Third new line of argument
Who coined the term “Nature and Nurture”
Galton
a research technique that remains at the heart of behavior genetics today and that he introduced in an 1875 article title “The History of Twins, as a Criterion of the Relative Powers of Nature and Nurture.
Twin-Studies
Two types of twins
Monozygotic and Dizygotic
Improving the human race through selective breeding
Eugenics
What were the two most important ideas Galton contributed originally to support his idea of eugenics?
Intelligence tests and the concept of statistical correlation.
relative strengths of various hereditary relationships with mathematical precision.
Statistical Correlation
Be able to recognize Galton’s 3 other contributions to the history of psychology.
a. fingerprints
b. questionnaires for mental imagery
c. Word association.
