Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Gould- reviewed the research done by Yerkes
Yerkes- carried out the…
Gould- reviewed the research done by Yerkes
Yerkes- carried out the research into intelligence testing
Background
Binet-Simon test (1905)- the first intelligence test designed to identify school children who would not benefit from regulae schooling because of their inferior intelligence and should be placed into ‘special schools’.
A key debate at the time was whether intelligence was inherited or it could be learned.
Yerkes said that intelligence is determined by our genetics and would therefore not be affected by nurture.
Yerkes’ aims
-
To prove that psychology (intelligence testing) could be as objective as the other scientific disciplines.
Key terms
Intelligence
An inferred characteristic of an individual, usually defined as the ability to profit from experience, acquire knowledge, think abstractly, or adapt to changes in the environment.
Psychometric tests
Tools that seek to provide numerical measures of human personality traits, attitudes, and abilities.
Eugenics
The belief that it is possible to breed a superior group of people by encouraging those deemed superior to reproduce while inhibiting the growth of those groups deemed inferior.
Hereditarianism
The belief that genetic inheritance is more important than environmental factors in determining intelligence and behaviour.
Yerkes’ sample
-
The sample included white Americans, ‘Negroes’, and European immigrants
-
-
-
-
Validity
-
Population validity
The sample represents a fairly wide set of cultural backgrounds with those from Eastern, Central, Northern and Southern Europe as well as white and black Americans and the sample was very large so the results should be fairly generalisable (but no women)
Criterion validity
The tests were used to predict if recruits were intelligent enough to be considered for roles as officers (however the bias in the tests means that the findings are unlikely to be a good predictor of this).
-
Results
White Americans had an average mental age of 13, black Americans were "found" to have an average age of 10.41. Southern and Eastern European immigrants were also "found" to have low intelligence
-
Gould's conclusions
There were ‘systematic errors’ in the design of the tests and how they were administered which led to black recruits and immigrants scoring lower.
Intelligence testing of this kind is culturally biased and if interpreted incorrectly can lead to racial discrimination.
-
Evaluation
Strengths
Yerkes' study was developing in large-scale intelligence testing, with real-world impact
-