ANTHRO 128B Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Paul Broca, Suggestibility, Craniometry
Reflection
Why did Alfred Binet abandon craniometry and pursue
psychological methods of intelligence testing?
How was IQ testing used in the US?
Influenced by Paul Broca
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Conducted head size and intelligence studies on school children
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Believed correlation between head size and intelligence
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Smarter kids would have bigger brains, dumber kids would have smaller brains
▪
The tenacity of unconscious bias and surprising malleability of objective, quantitative data in the interest of a preconceived idea
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Ex: Mall examining Bean's work, Samuel Morton's skulls
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Suggestibility: dangerous because it is a half conscious act
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Self-Suggestion: difference between extremes were greater and more consistent; craniometry started falling out of favor
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Abandoned craniometry; little work had to be done with psychological methods
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Wanted to construct a set of tasks that can assess reasoning more directly
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Switching to psychological methods
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Alfred Binet
Argued mental age should be divided by chronological age
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Binet's thoughts: intelligence too complex to capture with single number
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Rough empirical guide constructed for limited, practical purpose
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Intelligence is not single, sealable thing
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Only wanted to help those who needed it
▪
Feared that intelligence could be perverted into permanent label
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Declined to label IQ as inborn intelligence
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Refused to regard it as a general device for ranking all pupils according to mental worth
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Identify those who needed help to improve, not to limit
□
Created scale for specific application only
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Some children might be innately incapable of normal achievement, but all could improve with special help
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Binet feared it was a self-fulfilling prophesy
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IQ = intelligence quotient
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William Stern
View measures of intelligence as markers of permanent innate limits
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Professions appropriate for their biology
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Children who are labeled should be sorted and trained according to their inheritance
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Believed that there was very little that could be done in order to improve child's innate limits of intelligence
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Heritable does not equal inevitable
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Differences between groups may still only record environmental disadvantages
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Critiquing:
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Hereditarians
Understood that not all children have same intellectual potential
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Emphasize power of creative education to increase the achievements of all children often in extensive and unanticipated ways
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Anti-hereditarians
Smaller classrooms of 15-20 instead of 60-80 to cater to poor children
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Special methods of education
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Mental orthopedics: children must learn how to learn
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Exercises to aid learning
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Binet's recommendations
The score is a practical device; does not define anything innate or permanent
1.
Binet's cardinal principles on IQ testing
2/12/18
Monday, February 12, 2018
10:59 AM
February 12 Page 1
Document Summary
Conducted head size and intelligence studies on school children. Suggestibility: dangerous because it is a half conscious act. The tenacity of unconscious bias and surprising malleability of objective, quantitative data in the interest of a preconceive d idea. Smarter kids would have bigger brains, dumber kids would have smaller brains. Ex: mall examining bean"s work, samuel morton"s skulls. Self-suggestion: difference between extremes were greater and more consistent; craniometry started falling out of favor. Abandoned craniometry; little work had to be done with psychological methods. Wanted to construct a set of tasks that can assess reasoning more directly. Argued mental age should be divided by chronological age. Binet"s thoughts: intelligence too complex to capture with single number. Rough empirical guide constructed for limited, practical purpose. Feared that intelligence could be perverted into permanent label. Only wanted to help those who needed it. Refused to regard it as a general device for ranking all pupils according to mental worth.
