Ethical and Professional Issues in Psychology Testing

CHAPTER 2 The History of

Psychological Testing TOPIC 2A The Origins of Psychological Testing 2.1 Rudimentary Forms of Testing in China in 2200 B.C. 2.2 Physiognomy, Phrenology, and the Psychograph 2.3 The Brass Instruments Era of Testing 2.4 Rating Scales and Their Origins 2.5 Changing Conceptions of Mental Retardation in the 1800s 2.6 Influence of Binet’s Early Research on His Test 2.7 Binet and Testing for Higher Mental Processes 2.8 The Revised Scales and the Advent of IQ

The history of psychological testing is a fascinating story and has abundant relevance to present-day practices. After all, contemporary tests did not spring from a vacuum; they evolved slowly from a host of precursors introduced over the last 100 years. Accordingly, Chapter 2 features a review of the historical roots of present-day psychological tests. In Topic 2A, The Origins of Psychological Testing, we focus largely on the efforts of European psychologists to measure intelligence during the late nineteenth century and pre–World War I era. These early intelligence tests and their successors often exerted powerful effects on the examinees who took them, so the first topic also documents the historical impact of psychological test results. Topic 2B, Testing from the Early 1900s to the Present, catalogues the profusion of tests developed by American psychologists in the first half of the twentieth century.

Psychological testing in its modern form originated little more than 100 years ago in laboratory studies of sensory discrimination, motor skills, and reaction time. The British genius Francis Galton (1822–1911) invented the first battery of tests, a peculiar assortment of sensory and motor measures, which we review in the following. The American psychologist James McKeen Cattell (1860–1944) studied with Galton and then, in 1890, proclaimed the modern testing agenda in his classic paper entitled “Mental Tests and Measurements.” He was tentative and modest when describing the purposes and applications of his instruments: Psychology cannot attain the certainty and

exactness of the physical sciences, unless it rests on a foundation of experiment and measurement. A step in this direction could be made by applying a series of mental tests and measurements to a large number of individuals. The results would be of considerable scientific value in discovering the constancy of mental processes, their interdependence, and their variation under

different circumstances. Individuals, besides, would find their tests interesting, and, perhaps, useful in regard to training, mode of life or indication of disease. The scientific and practical value of such tests would be much increased should a uniform system be adopted, so that determinations made at different times and places could be compared and combined. (Cattell, 1890)

Cattell’s conjecture that “perhaps” tests would be useful in “training, mode of life or indication of disease” must certainly rank as one of the prophetic understatements of all time. Anyone reared in the Western world knows that psychological testing has emerged from its timid beginnings to become a big business and a cultural institution that permeates modern society. As we shall see, the importance of testing is evident from historical review. Students of psychology generally regard historical issues as dull, dry, and pedantic, and sometimes these prejudices are well deserved. After all, many textbooks fail to explain the relevance of

historical matters and provide only vague sketches of early developments in mental testing. As a result, students of psychology often conclude incorrectly that historical issues are boring and irrelevant. In reality, the history of psychological testing is a captivating story that has substantial relevance to present-day practices. In later chapters, we examine the principles of psychological testing, investigate applications in specific fields (e.g., personality, intelligence, neuropsychology), and reflect on the social and legal consequences of testing. However, the reader will find these topics more comprehensible when viewed in historical context. So, for now, we begin at the beginning by reviewing rudimentary forms of testing that existed over 4,000 years ago in imperial China.

2.1 RUDIMENTARY FORMS OF TESTING IN CHINA IN 2200 B.C.

Although the widespread use of psychological testing is largely a phenomenon of the twentieth century, historians note that rudimentary forms of testing date back to at least 2200 B.C. when the Chinese emperor had his officials examined every third year to determine their fitness for office (Bowman, 1989; Chaffee, 1985; Franke, 1963; Teng, 1942–43). Such testing was modified and refined over the centuries until written exams were introduced in the Han dynasty (202 B.C.–A.D. 200). Five topics were tested: civil law, military affairs, agriculture, revenue, and geography. The Chinese examination system took its final form around 1370 when proficiency in the Confucian classics was emphasized. In the preliminary examination, candidates were required to spend a day and a night in a small isolated booth, composing essays on assigned topics and writing a poem. The 1 to 7 percent who passed moved up to the district examinations, which required three separate sessions of three days and three nights.

The district examinations were obviously grueling and rigorous, but this was not the final level. The 1 to 10 percent who passed were allowed the privilege of going to Peking for the final round of examinations. Perhaps 3 percent of this final group passed and became mandarins, eligible for public office. Although the Chinese developed the external trappings of a comprehensive civil service examination program, the similarities between their traditions and current testing practices are, in the main, superficial. Not only were their testing practices unnecessarily grueling, but the Chinese also failed to validate their selection procedures. Nonetheless, it does appear that the examination program incorporated relevant selection criteria. For example, in the written exams beauty of penmanship was weighted very heavily. Given the highly stylistic features of Chinese written forms, good penmanship was no doubt essential for clear, exact communication. Thus, penmanship was probably a relevant predictor of suitability for civil service employment. In response to

widespread discontent, the examination system was abolished by royal decree in 1906 (Franke, 1963). 2.2 PHYSIOGNOMY, PHRENOLOGY, AND THE PSYCHOGRAPH Physiognomy is based on the notion that we can judge the inner character of people from their outward appearance, especially the face. Albeit misguided and now largely discredited, physiognomy represents an early form of psychological testing. Hence, we provide a primer on the topic, including its more recent cousin, phrenology. Interest in physiognomy can be dated to the fourth century, when the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) published a short treatise based on the premise that the soul and the body “sympathize” with each other. Essentially, Aristotle argued that changes in a person’s soul (inner character) could impact the appearance of the body, and vice versa. The

relationship between the two allowed the astute observer to infer personality characteristics from individual appearance. Aristotle catalogued a vast array of traits that could be discerned from features of hair, forehead, eyebrows, eyes, nose, lips, and so on. Here are some examples: Hair that hangs down without curling, if it be of

a fair complexion, thin, and soft withal, signifies a man to be naturally fainthearted, and of a weak body but of a quiet and harmless disposition. Hair that is big, and thick, and short withal, denotes a man to be of a strong constitution, secure, and deceitful, and for the most part unquiet, and vain, lusting after beauty, and more foolish than wise, though fortune may favor him. (Aristotle, Of Physiognomy, www.exclassics.com/arist/arist63.htm)

Many other classical Latin authors wrote about physiognomy, including Juvenal, Suetonius, and Pliny the Elder. But it was not until centuries later that physiognomy began to flourish when a Swiss theologian penned a popular best-seller on the topic.

Johann Lavater (1741–1801) published his Essays on Physiognomy in Germany in the late eighteenth century. English and French translations followed shortly and sales exploded in Western Europe and the United States. Eventually, more than 150 editions of the text were published (Graham, 1961). Lavater’s book contained hundreds of meticulous drawings depicting his principles of physiognomy by which character could be judged from details of facial appearance. Lukasik (2004) describes the allure of this approach: Since Lavaterian physiognomy read moral

character from unalterable and involuntary facial features, it created a visual system for discerning a person’s permanent moral character despite his or her social masks. Readers of the 1817 Pocket Lavater, for instance, learned how to look at the features of various white male faces in order to discriminate “the physiognomy of . . . a man of business” from that of “a rogue.” (p. 1)

Physiognomy remained popular for centuries and laid the foundation for the more specialized form of quackery known as phrenology— reading “bumps” on the head. The founding of phrenology is usually attributed to the German physician Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828). His “science” actually was based on a veneer of plausibility. In his major work, The Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System in General, and of the Brain in Particular (1810), Gall argued that the brain is the organ of sentiments and faculties and that these capacities are localized. Furthermore, he reasoned, to the extent that a specific faculty was well developed, the corresponding component of the brain would be enlarged. In turn, because the skull conforms to the shape of the brain, a cranial “bump” would signify an enlargement of the underlying faculty. These plausible (but incorrect) assumptions allowed Gall and his followers to decide if an individual was amorous, secretive, hopeful, combative, benevolent, self-confident, happy, imitative—in

all, dozens of traits were discerned from cranial bumps. Johann Spurzheim (1776–1832), a disciple of Gall, popularized phrenology and disseminated it to the United States and Great Britain, where it became enormously popular. In fact, a few entrepreneurs developed automated devices to measure the bumps with precision. In 1931, after decades of tinkering, Henry C. Lavery, a self-proclaimed genius and ardent believer in phrenology, spent a small fortune developing his machine known as the psychograph (McCoy, 2000). It consisted of hundreds of moving parts assembled in a large helmet-like device fitted over the examinee’s head. Each of 32 mental faculties was rated 1 through 5 (“deficient” to “very superior”) based on the way that probes made contact with the head. A belt-driven motor stamped out statements for each of the 32 faculties, providing one of the first automated personality descriptions. Initially, the psychograph was a spectacular success, and its promoters earned small fortunes. But by the mid-1930s public skepticism held sway, and the

company that manufactured the instrument went out of business (McCoy, 2000).

2.3 THE BRASS INSTRUMENTS ERA OF TESTING Experimental psychology flourished in the late 1800s in continental Europe and Great Britain. For the first time in history, psychologists departed from the wholly subjective and introspective methods that had been so fruitlessly pursued in the preceding centuries. Human abilities were instead tested in laboratories. Researchers used objective procedures that were capable of replication. Gone were the days when rival laboratories would have raging arguments about “imageless thought,” one group saying it existed, another group saying that such a mental event was impossible. Even though the new emphasis on objective methods and measurable quantities was a vast

improvement over the largely sterile mentalism that preceded it, the new experimental psychology was itself a dead end, at least as far as psychological testing was concerned. The problem was that the early experimental psychologists mistook simple sensory processes for intelligence. They used assorted brass instruments to measure sensory thresholds and reaction times, thinking that such abilities were at the heart of intelligence. Hence, this period is sometimes referred to as the Brass Instruments era of psychological testing. In spite of the false start made by early experimentalists, at least they provided psychology with an appropriate methodology. Such pioneers as Wundt, Galton, Cattell, and Wissler showed that it was possible to expose the mind to scientific scrutiny and measurement. This was a fateful change in the axiomatic assumptions of psychology, a change that has stayed with us to the current day. Most sources credit Wilhelm Wundt (1832– 1920) with founding the first psychological laboratory in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany. It is

less well recognized that he was measuring mental processes years before, at least as early as 1862, when he experimented with his thought meter (Diamond, 1980). This device was a calibrated pendulum with needles sticking off from each side. The pendulum would swing back and forth, striking bells with the needles. The observer’s task was to take note of the position of the pendulum when the bells sounded. Of course, Wundt could adjust the needles beforehand and thereby know the precise position of the pendulum when each bell was struck. Wundt thought that the difference between the observed pendulum position and the actual position would provide a means of determining the swiftness of thought of the observer. Wundt’s analysis was relevant to a long- standing problem in astronomy. The problem was that two or more astronomers simultaneously using the same telescope (with multiple eyepieces) would report different crossing times as the stars moved across a grid line on the telescope. Even in Wundt’s time, it

was a well-known event in the history of science that Kinnebrook, an assistant at the Royal Observatory in England, had been dismissed in 1796 because his stellar crossing times were nearly a full second too slow (Boring, 1950). Wundt’s analysis offered another explanation that did not assume incompetence on the part of anyone. Put simply, Wundt believed that the speed of thought might differ from one person to the next: For each person there must be a certain speed of

thinking, which he can never exceed with his given mental constitution. But just as one steam engine can go faster than another, so this speed of thought will probably not be the same in all persons. (Wundt, 1862, as translated in Rieber, 1980)

This analysis of telescope reporting times seems simplistic by present-day standards and overlooks the possible contribution of such factors as attention, motivation, and self- correcting feedback from prior trials. On the positive side, this was at least an empirical

analysis that sought to explain individual differences instead of trying to explain them away. And that is the relevance to current practices in psychological testing. However crudely, Wundt measured mental processes and begrudgingly acknowledged individual differences. This emphasis on individual differences was rare for Wundt. He is more renowned for proposing common laws of thought for the average adult mind. Galton and the First Battery of Mental Tests Sir Francis Galton (1822–1911) pioneered the new experimental psychology in nineteenth- century Great Britain. Galton was obsessed with measurement, and his intellectual career seems to have been dominated by a belief that virtually anything was measurable. His attempts to measure intellect by means of reaction time and sensory discrimination tasks are well known. Yet, to appreciate his wide-ranging interests, the reader should be apprised that Galton also devised techniques for measuring beauty,

personality, the boringness of lectures, and the efficacy of prayer, to name but a few of the endeavors that his biographer has catalogued in elaborate detail (Pearson 1914, 1924, 1930a,b). Galton was a genius who was more interested in the problems of human evolution than in psychology per se (Boring, 1950). His two most influential works were Hereditary Genius (1869), an empirical analysis purporting to prove that genetic factors were overwhelmingly important for the attainment of eminence, and Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development (1883), a disparate series of essays that emphasized individual differences in mental faculties. Boring (1950) regards Inquiries as the beginning of the mental test movement and the advent of the scientific psychology of individual differences. The book is a curious mixture of empirical research and speculative essays on topics as diverse as “just perceptible differences” in lifted weight and diminished fertility among inbred animals. There is, nonetheless, a common theme uniting these

diverse essays; Galton demonstrates time and again that individual differences not only exist but also are objectively measurable. Galton borrowed the time-consuming psychophysical procedures practiced by Wundt and others on the European continent and adapted them to a series of simple and quick sensorimotor measures. Thus, he continued the tradition of brass instruments mental testing but with an important difference: his procedures were much more amenable to the timely collection of data from hundreds if not thousands of subjects. Because of his efforts in devising practicable measures of individual differences, historians of psychological testing usually regard Galton as the father of mental testing (Goodenough, 1949; Boring, 1950). To further his study of individual differences, Galton set up a psychometric laboratory in London at the International Health Exhibition in 1884. It was later transferred to the London Museum, where it was maintained for six years. Various anthropometric and psychometric measures were arranged on a long table at one

side of a narrow room. Subjects were admitted at one end for threepence and given successive tests as they moved down the table. At least 17,000 individuals were tested during the 1880s and 1890s. About 7,500 of the individual data records have survived to the present day (Johnson et al., 1985). The tests and measures involved both the physical and behavioral domains. Physical characteristics assessed were height, weight, head length, head breadth, arm span, length of middle finger, and length of lower arm, among others. The behavioral tests included strength of hand squeeze determined by dynamometer, vital capacity of the lungs measured by spirometer, visual acuity, highest audible tone, speed of blow, and reaction time (RT) to both visual and auditory stimuli. Ultimately, Galton’s simplistic attempts to gauge intellect with measures of reaction time and sensory discrimination proved fruitless. Nonetheless, he did provide a tremendous impetus to the testing movement by demonstrating that objective tests could be

devised and that meaningful scores could be obtained through standardized procedures. Cattell Imports Brass Instruments to the United States James McKeen Cattell (1860–1944) studied the new experimental psychology with both Wundt and Galton before settling at Columbia University where, for 26 years, he was the undisputed dean of American psychology. With Wundt, he did a series of painstakingly elaborate RT studies (1880–1882), measuring with great precision the fractions of a second presumably required for different mental reactions. He also noted, almost in passing, that he and another colleague had small but consistent differences in RT. Cattell proposed to Wundt that such individual differences ought to be studied systematically. Although Wundt acknowledged individual differences, he was philosophically more inclined to study general features of the mind, and he offered no support for Cattell’s proposal (Fancher, 1985).

But Cattell received enthusiastic support for his study of individual differences from Galton, who had just opened his psychometric laboratory in London. After corresponding with Galton for a few years, Cattell arranged for a two-year fellowship at Cambridge so that he could continue the study of individual differences. Cattell opened his own research laboratory and developed a series of tests that were mainly extensions and additions to Galton’s battery. Cattell (1890) invented the term mental test in his famous paper entitled “Mental Tests and Measurements.” This paper described his research program, detailing 10 mental tests he proposed for use with the general public. These tests were clearly a reworking and embellishment of the Galtonian tradition: • Strength of hand squeeze as measured by

dynamometer • Rate of hand movement through a distance

of 50 centimeters

• Two-point threshold for touch—minimum distance at which two points are still perceived as separate

• Degree of pressure needed to cause pain— rubber tip pressed against the forehead

• Weight differentiation—discern the relative weights of identical-looking boxes varying by one gram from 100 to 110 grams

• Reaction time for sound—using a device similar to Galton’s

• Time for naming colors • Bisection of a 50-centimeter line • Judgment of 10 seconds of time • Number of letters repeated on one hearing

Strength of hand squeeze seems a curious addition to a battery of mental tests, a point that Cattell (1890) addressed directly in his paper. He was of the opinion that it was impossible to separate bodily energy from mental energy. Thus, in Cattell’s view, an ostensibly physiological measure such as dynamometer pressure was an index of one’s mental power as well. Clearly, the physiological and sensory bias

of the entire test battery reflects its strongly Galtonian heritage (Fancher, 1985). In 1891, Cattell accepted a position at Columbia University, at that time the largest university in the United States. His subsequent influence on American psychology was far in excess of his individual scientific output and was expressed in large part through his numerous and influential students (Boring, 1950). Among his many famous doctoral students and the years of their degrees were E. L. Thorndike (1898) who made monumental contributions to learning theory and educational psychology; R. S. Woodworth (1899) who was to author the very popular and influential Experimental Psychology (1938); and E. K. Strong (1911) whose Vocational Interest Blank—since revised—is still in wide use. But among Cattell’s students, it was probably Clark Wissler (1901) who had the greatest influence on the early history of psychological testing. Wissler obtained both mental test scores and academic grades from more than 300 students at Columbia University and Barnard College. His goal was to demonstrate that the test results

could predict academic performance. With our early twenty-first-century perspective on research and testing, it seems amazing that the early experimentalists waited so long to do such basic validational research. Wissler’s (1901) results showed virtually no tendency for the mental test scores to correlate with academic achievement. For example, class standing correlated .16 with memory for number lists, −.08 with dynamometer strength, .02 with color naming, and −.02 with reaction time. The highest correlation (.16) was statistically significant because of the large sample size. However, so humble a correlation carries with it very little predictive utility.1 Also damaging to the brass instruments testing movement was the very modest correlations between the mental tests themselves. For example, color naming and hand movement speed correlated only .19, while RT and color naming correlated −.15. Several physical measures such as head size (a holdover measure from the Galton era) were, not surprisingly, also

uncorrelated with the various sensory and RT measures. With the publication of Wissler’s (1901) discouraging results, experimental psychologists largely abandoned the use of RT and sensory discrimination as measures of intelligence. This turning away from the brass instruments approach was a desirable development in the history of psychological testing. The way was thereby paved for immediate acceptance of Alfred Binet’s more sensible and useful measures of higher mental processes. A common reaction among psychologists in the early 1900s was to begrudgingly conclude that Galton had been wrong in attempting to infer complex abilities from simple ones. Goodenough (1949) has likened Galton’s approach to “inferring the nature of genius from the nature of stupidity or the qualities of water from those of the hydrogen and oxygen of which it is composed.” The academic psychologists apparently agreed with her, and American attempts to develop intelligence tests virtually ceased at the turn of the twentieth

century. For his own part, Wissler was apparently so discouraged by his results that he immediately switched to anthropology, where he became a strong environmentalist in explaining differences between ethnic groups. The void created by the abandonment of the Galtonian tradition did not last for long. In Europe, Alfred Binet was on the verge of a major breakthrough in intelligence testing. Binet introduced his scale of intelligence in 1905, and shortly thereafter H. H. Goddard imported it to the United States, where it was applied in a manner that Gould (1981) has described as “the dismantling of Binet’s intentions in America.” Whether early twentieth-century American psychologists subverted Binet’s intentions is an important question that we review in the next topic. First we turn to a more general topic, the rise of rating scales in the history of psychology. 1We discuss the correlation coefficient in more detail in Topic 3B, Concepts of Reliability. By way of quick preview, correlations can range from −1.0 to +1.0. Values near zero indicate a weak, negligible linear relationship between the two variables. For example, correlations between −.20 and +.20 are generally of minimal value for purposes of individual prediction.

Note also that negative correlations indicate an inverse relationship.

2.4 RATING SCALES AND THEIR ORIGINS Rating scales are widely used in psychology as a means of quantifying subjective psychological variables of many kinds. An example of a simple rating scale might be the 11-point scale used by doctors when they ask patients in the emergency room “On a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 is no pain at all, and 10 is the worst pain you have ever felt, how bad is your pain right now?” Albeit crude, this is a form of psychological measurement. Psychometricians have developed a rich literature on the qualities and applications of rating scales of this type (Guilford, 1954; Nunnally, 1967; Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). Historians of psychology used to think that numerical rating scales originated in the “brass instruments” era of Francis Galton (McReynolds & Ludwig, 1987). However, it

now appears that a crude form of rating scale can be traced to Galen, the second century Greco-Roman physician. Galen believed in the prevailing humor theory of health and disease, in which the harmony or disharmony among four bodily fluids or “humors” determined one’s health. The four humors were yellow bile, black bile, phlegm, and blood. The humorology of the time also featured the dichotomies of hot–cold and wet–dry as elements of health or illness. With respect to the hot-cold dimension, Galen recognized the need for something more sophisticated than a simple dichotomy: This standard, or neutral value, he suggested

should be the temperature, as reflected in direct sense–perception, of a mixture of equal quantities of boiling water and ice (Taylor, 1942). Further, Galen proposed a convention of four degrees of heat and four degrees of cold, on either side of that standard, that could be induced in patients by various drugs. (McReynolds & Ludwig, 1987, p. 281)

Although he did not say so explicitly, Galen was in effect proposing a nine-point rating scale consisting of four points above and four points below a neutral point. Whether the successive increases of heat or cold were equal in the hot– cold scale—what we would now refer to as the underlying scale of measurement—was an issue left to others, including the ninth-century Islamic philosopher, Al-kindi (Taylor, 1942). Al- kindi was an Arab polymath considered by many the father of Islamic philosophy. He questioned whether the successive degrees of heat and cold could be equal but did not propose a means for answering the inquiry. Al-kindi made important contributions in many fields, including astronomy, chemistry, and medicine (www.muslimphilosophy.com/kindi). According to McReynolds and Ludwig (1984), the first person to devise and apply rating scales for psychological variables was Christian Thomasius (1655–1728). Thomasius was a German jurist and philosopher whose career spanned numerous fields of inquiry. He developed a theory of personality that posited

four major dimensions—sensuousness, acquisitiveness, social ambition, and rational love. He employed judges to assess individuals on all four inclinations on a 12-point scale (5, 10, 15, 20, all the way up to 60). In 1692, he published numerical data—including reliability data—on five individuals as rated by himself and other judges. This was a landmark accomplishment: “This work appears to constitute the first systematic collection and analysis of quantitative empirical data in the entire history of psychology” (McReynolds & Ludwig, 1984, p. 282). Ratings scale slowly caught on in the years after their first serious use by Thomasius. Among those applying these new devices were phrenologists, including the renowned practitioner Orson Fowler. Phrenology is described in an earlier section of this chapter. Fowler depicted the application of seven-point rating scales in his Practical Phrenology (1851). The bulges in different areas of the skull were rated as 1, VERY SMALL; 2, SMALL; 3, MODERATE; 4, AVERAGE; 5, FULL; 6,

LARGE; 7, VERY LARGE. From these ratings, the relative strengths of specific moral and intellectual qualities were presumed to be quantified.2 The use of ratings scale may have provided Fowler’s practice of phrenology a facade of respectability. Even so, this did not prevent his arrest in 1886 for practicing medicine without a license (New York Times, January 17, 1886). According to the Times article: The phrenologist denies that he practices

medicine and asserts that he has violated no law, that he is simply a phrenologist, and does not give remedies to persons who apply to him to have their craniums examined. There was quite a crowd of patrons in the Professor’s anteroom at the hotel when the detective served the warrant. Prof. Fowler was held to await action by the Grand Jury, and released on his own recognizance.

Phrenology, which surrounded itself with the trappings of science, including models of the head and brain, authoritative pronouncements,

and, yes, even ratings scales, phrenology which flourished into the early 1900s, eventually faded into disrepute. 2The common idiom “You should have your head examined” probably alludes to the (now discredited) practice of phrenology (Ammer, 2003).

2.5 CHANGING CONCEPTIONS OF MENTAL RETARDATION IN THE 1800s Many great inventions have been developed in response to the practical needs created by changes in societal values. Such is the case with intelligence tests. To be specific, the first such tests were developed by Binet in the early 1900s to help identify children in the Paris school system who were unlikely to profit from ordinary instruction. Prior to this time, there was little interest in the educational needs of children with mental retardation. A new humanism toward those with mental retardation thus created the practical problem—identifying

those with special needs—that Binet’s tests were to solve. The Western world of the late 1800s was just emerging from centuries of indifference and hostility toward the psychiatrically and mentally impaired. Medical practitioners were just beginning to acknowledge a distinction between individuals with emotional disabilities and mental retardation. For centuries, all such social outcasts were given similar treatment. In the Middle Ages, they were occasionally “diagnosed” as witches and put to death by burning. Later on, they were alternately ignored, persecuted, or tortured. In his comprehensive history of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, Bromberg (1959) has an especially graphic chapter on the various forms of maltreatment toward those with mental and emotional disabilities, from which only one example will be provided here. In 1698, a prominent physician wrote a gruesome book, Flagellum Salutis, in which beatings were advocated as treatment “in melancholia; in frenzy; in

paralysis; in epilepsy; in facial expression of feebleminded” (Bromberg, 1959). By the early 1800s, saner minds began to prevail. Medical practitioners realized that some of those with psychiatric impairment had reversible illnesses that did not necessarily imply diminished intellect, whereas other exceptional persons, those with mental retardation, showed a greater developmental continuity and invariably had impaired intellect. In addition, a newfound humanism began to influence social practices toward individuals with psychological and mental disabilities. With this humanism there arose a greater interest in the diagnosis and remediation of mental retardation. At the forefront of these developments were two French physicians, J. E. D. Esquirol and O. E. Seguin, each of whom revolutionized thinking about those with mental retardation, thereby helping to create the necessity for Binet’s tests. Esquirol and Diagnosis in Mental Retardation

Around the beginning of the nineteenth century, many physicians had begun to perceive the difference between mental retardation (then called idiocy) and mental illness (often referred to as dementia). J. E. D. Esquirol (1772–1840) was the first to formalize the difference in writing. His diagnostic breakthrough was noting that mental retardation was a lifelong developmental phenomenon, whereas mental illness usually had a more abrupt onset in adulthood. He thought that mental retardation was incurable, whereas mental illness might show improvement (Esquirol, 1845/1838). Esquirol placed great emphasis on language skills in the diagnosis of mental retardation. This may offer a partial explanation as to why Binet’s later tests and the modern-day descendents from them are so heavily loaded on linguistic abilities. After all, the original use of the Binet scales was, in the main, to identify children with mental retardation who would not likely profit from ordinary schooling. Esquirol also proposed the first classification system in mental retardation and it should be no

surprise that language skills were the main diagnostic criteria. He recognized three levels of mental retardation: (1) those using short phrases, (2) those using only monosyllables, and (3) those with cries only, no speech. Apparently, Esquirol did not recognize what we would now call mild mental retardation, instead providing criteria for the equivalents of the modern-day classifications of moderate, severe, and profound mental retardation. Seguin and Education of Individuals with Mental Retardation Perhaps more than any other pioneer in the field of mental retardation, O. Edouard Seguin (1812–1880) helped establish a new humanism toward those with mental retardation in the late 1800s. He had been a student of Esquirol and had also studied with J. M. G. Itard (1774– 1838), who is well known for his five-year attempt to train the Wild Boy of Aveyron, a feral child who had lived in the woods for his first 11 or 12 years (Itard, 1932/1801).

Seguin borrowed from techniques used by Itard and devoted his life to developing educational programs for persons with mental retardation. As early as 1838, he had established an experimental class for such individuals. His treatment efforts earned him international acclaim and he eventually came to the United States to continue his work. In 1866, he published Idiocy, and Its Treatment by the Physiological Method, the first major textbook on the treatment of mental retardation. This book advocated a surprisingly modern approach to education of individuals with mental retardation and even touched on what would now be called behavior modification. Such was the social and historical background that allowed intelligence tests to flourish. We turn now to the invention of the modern-day intelligence test by Alfred Binet. We begin with a discussion of the early influences that shaped his famous test.

2.6 INFLUENCE OF BINET’S EARLY RESEARCH ON HIS TEST As most every student of psychology knows, Alfred Binet (1857–1911) invented the first modern intelligence test in 1905. What is less well known, but equally important for those who seek an understanding of his contributions to modern psychology, is that Binet was a prolific researcher and author long before he turned his attentions to intelligence testing. The character of his early research had a material bearing on the subsequent form of his well- known intelligence test. For those who seek a full understanding of his pathbreaking influence, brief mention of Binet’s early career is mandatory. For more details the reader can consult Fancher (1985), Goodenough (1949), Gould (1981), and Wolf (1973). Binet began his career in medicine but was forced to drop out because of a complete emotional breakdown. He switched to

psychology, where he studied the two-point threshold and dabbled in the associationist psychology of John Stuart Mill (1806–1873). Later, he selected an apprenticeship with the neurologist J. M. Charcot (1825–1893) at the famous Salpetriere Hospital. Thus, for a brief time Binet’s professional path paralleled that of Sigmund Freud, who also studied hysteria under Charcot. At the Salpetriere Hospital, Binet coauthored (with C. Fere) four studies supposedly demonstrating that reversing the polarity of a magnet could induce complete mood changes (e.g., from happy to sad) or transfer of hysterical paralysis (e.g., from left to right side) in a single hypnotized subject. In response to public criticism from other psychologists, Binet later published a recantation of his findings. This was a painful episode for Binet, and it sent his career into a temporary detour. Nonetheless, he learned two things through his embarrassment. First, he never again used sloppy experimental procedures that allowed for unintentional suggestion to influence his results. Second, he

became skeptical of the zeitgeist (spirit of the times) in experimental psychology. Both of these lessons were applied when he later developed his intelligence scales. In 1891, Binet went to work at the Sorbonne as an unpaid assistant and began a series of studies and publications that were to define his new “individual psychology” and ultimately to culminate in his intelligence tests. Binet was an ardent experimentalist, often using his two daughters to try out existing and new tests of intelligence. Binet’s experiments with his children greatly influenced his views on proper testing procedures: The experimenter is obliged, to a point, to adjust

his method to the subject he is addressing. There are certain rules to follow when one experiments on a child, just as there are certain rules for adults, for hysterics, and for the insane. These rules are not written down anywhere; each one learns them for himself and is repaid in great measure. By making an error and later accounting for the cause, one learns not to make the

mistake a second time. In regard to children, it is necessary to be suspicious of two principal causes of error: suggestion and failure of attention. This is not the time to speak on the first point. As for the second, failure of attention, it is so important that it is always necessary to suspect it when one obtains a negative result. One must then suspend the experiments and take them up at a more favorable moment, restarting them 10 times, 20 times, with great patience. Children, in fact, are often little disposed to pay attention to experiments which are not entertaining, and it is useless to hope that one can make them more attentive by threatening them with punishment. By particular tricks, however, one can sometimes give the experiment a certain appeal. (Binet, 1895, quoted in Pollack, 1971)

It is interesting to contrast modern-day testing practices—which go so far as to specify the exact wording the examiner should use—with

Binet’s advice to exercise nearly endless patience and use entertaining tricks when testing children.

2.7 BINET AND TESTING FOR HIGHER MENTAL PROCESSES In 1896, Binet and his Sorbonne assistant, Victor Henri, published a pivotal review of German and American work on individual differences. In this historically important paper, they argued that intelligence could be better measured by means of the higher psychological processes rather than the elementary sensory processes such as reaction time. After several false starts, Binet and Simon eventually settled on the straightforward format of their 1905 scales, discussed subsequently. The character of the 1905 scale owed much to a prior test developed by Dr. Blin (1902) and his pupil, M. Damaye. They had attempted to improve the diagnosis of mental retardation by

using a battery of assessments in 20 areas such as spoken language; knowledge of parts of the body; obedience to simple commands; naming common objects; and ability to read, write, and do simple arithmetic. Binet criticized the scale for being too subjective, for having items reflecting formal education, and for using a “yes or no” format on many questions (DuBois, 1970). But he was much impressed with the idea of using a battery of tests, a feature that he adopted in his 1905 scales. In 1904, the Minister of Public Instruction in Paris appointed a commission to decide on the educational measures that should be undertaken with those children who could not profit from regular instruction. The commission concluded that medical and educational examinations should be used to identify those children who could not learn by the ordinary methods. Furthermore, it was determined that these children should be removed from their regular classes and given special instruction suitable to their more limited intellectual prowess. This

was the beginning of the special education classroom. It was evident that a means of selecting children for such special placement was needed, and Binet and his colleague Simon were called on to develop a practical tool for just this purpose. Thus arose the first formal scale for assessing the intelligence of children. The 30 tests on the 1905 scale ranged from utterly simple sensory tests to quite complex verbal abstractions. Thus, the scale was appropriate for assessing the entire gamut of intelligence—from severe mental retardation to high levels of giftedness. The entire scale is outlined in Table 2.1. Except for the very simplest tests, which were designed for the classification of very low-grade idiots (an unfortunate diagnostic term that has since been dropped), the tests were heavily weighted toward verbal skills, reflecting Binet’s departure from the Galtonian tradition. An interesting point that is often overlooked by contemporary students of psychology is that Binet and Simon did not offer a precise method

for arriving at a total score on their 1905 scale. It is well to remember that their purpose was classification, not measurement, and that their motivation was entirely humanitarian, namely, to identify those children who needed special educational placement. By contemporary standards, it is difficult to accept the fuzziness inherent in such an approach, but that may reflect a modern penchant for quantification more than a weakness in the 1905 scale. In fact, their scale was popular among educators in Paris. And, even with the absence of precise quantification, the approach was successful in selecting candidates for special classes.

2.8 THE REVISED SCALES AND THE ADVENT OF IQ In 1908, Binet and Simon published a revision of the 1905 scale. In the earlier scale, more than half the items had been designed for the very retarded, yet the major diagnostic decisions involved older children and those with borderline intellect. To remedy this imbalance,

most of the very simple items were dropped and new items were added at the higher end of the scale. The 1908 scale had 58 problems or tests, almost double the number from 1905. Several new tests were added, many of which are still used today: reconstructing scrambled sentences, copying a diamond, and executing a sequence of three commands. Some of the items were absurdities that the children had to detect and explain. One such item was amusing to French children: “The body of an unfortunate girl was found, cut into 18 pieces. It is thought that she killed herself.” However, this item was very upsetting to some American subjects, demonstrating the importance of cultural factors in intelligence (Fancher, 1985). The major innovation of the 1908 scale was the introduction of the concept of mental level. The tests had been standardized on about 300 normal children between the ages of 3 and 13 years. This allowed Binet and Simon to order the tests according to the age level at which they were typically passed. Whichever items were passed by 80 to 90 percent of the 3-year-olds were

placed in the 3-year level, and similarly on up to age 13. Binet and Simon also devised a rough scoring system whereby a basal age was first determined from the age level at which not more than one test was failed. For each five tests that were passed at levels above the basal, a full year of mental level was granted. Insofar as partial years of mental level were not credited and the various age levels had anywhere from three to eight tests, the method left much to be desired. TABLE 2.1 The 1905 Binet-Simon Scale

1.Follows a moving object with the eyes. 2.Grasps a small object which is touched. 3.Grasps a small object which is seen. 4.Distinguishes between a square of chocolate and a square of wood.

5.Finds and eats a square of chocolate wrapped in paper.

6.Executes simple commands and imitates simple gestures.

7.Points to familiar named objects, e.g., “Where is your head?”

8.Points to objects shown in pictures, e.g., “Put your finger on the window.”

9.Names objects in pictures, e.g., “What is this?” [examiner points to a picture of a dog].

10.Compares two lines of markedly unequal length.

11.Repeats three spoken digits. 12.Compares two weights. 13.Shows susceptibility to suggestion. 14.Defines common words by function. 15.Repeats a sentence of 15 words. 16.Tells how two common objects are different, e.g., “paper and cardboard.”

17.Names from memory objects displayed on a

Source: Based on Kite, E. (1916), The development of intelligence in children, Vineland, NJ: Vineland Training School. In 1911, a third revision of the Binet-Simon scales appeared. Each age level now had exactly five tests. The scale was also extended into the adult range. And with some reluctance, Binet introduced new scoring methods that allowed for one-fifth of a year for each subtest passed beyond the basal level. In his writings, Binet emphasized strongly that the child’s exact mental level should not be taken too seriously as an absolute measure of intelligence. Nonetheless, the idea of deriving a mental level was a monumental development that was to influence the character of intelligence testing throughout the twentieth century. Within months, what Binet called mental level was being translated as mental age. And testers everywhere, including Binet himself, were comparing a child’s mental age with the child’s chronological age. Thus, a 9-year-old who was functioning at the mental level (or mental age) of a 6-year-old was retarded by three years. Very

shortly, Stern (1912) pointed out that being retarded by three years had different meanings at different ages. A 5-year-old functioning at the 2-year-old level was more impaired than a 13- year-old functioning at the 10-year-old level. Stern suggested that an intelligence quotient computed from the mental age divided by the chronological age would give a better measure of the relative functioning of a subject compared to his or her same-aged peers. In 1916, Terman and his associates at Stanford revised the Binet-Simon scales, producing the Stanford-Binet, a successful test that is discussed in a later chapter. Terman suggested multiplying the intelligence quotient by 100 to remove fractions; he was also the first person to use the abbreviation IQ. Thus was born one of the most popular and controversial concepts in the history of psychology. Binet died in 1911 before the IQ swept American testing, so we will never know what he would have thought of this new development based on his scales. However, Simon, his collaborator, later called the concept of IQ a “betrayal” of their scale’s

original objectives (Fancher, 1985, p. 104), and we can assume from Binet’s humanistic concern that he might have held a similar opinion. TOPIC 2B Testing from the Early 1900s to the Present 2.9 Early Uses and Abuses of Tests in the United States 2.10 Group Tests and the Classification of WWI Army Recruits 2.11 Early Educational Testing 2.12 The Development of Aptitude Tests 2.13 Personality and Vocational Testing after WWI 2.14 The Origins of Projective Testing 2.15 The Development of Interest Inventories 2.16 The Emergence of Structured Personality Tests 2.17 The Expansion and Proliferation of Testing 2.18 Evidence-Based Practice and Outcomes Assessment

The Binet-Simon scales helped solve a practical social quandary, namely, how to identify children who needed special schooling. With this successful application of a mental test, psychologists realized that their inventions could have pragmatic significance for many different segments of society. Almost immediately, psychologists in the United States adopted a utilitarian focus. Intelligence testing was embraced by many as a reliable and objective response to perceived social problems such as the identification of immigrants with mental retardation and the quick, accurate classification of Army recruits (Boake, 2002). Whether these early tests really solved social dilemmas—or merely exacerbated them—is a fiercely debated issue reviewed in the following sections. One thing is certain: The profusion of tests developed early in the twentieth century helped shape the character of contemporary tests. A review of these historical trends will aid

in the comprehension of the nature of modern tests and a better appreciation of the social issues raised by them.

2.9 EARLY USES AND ABUSES OF TESTS IN THE UNITED STATES First Translation of the Binet-Simon Scale In 1906, Henry H. Goddard was hired by the Vine-land Training School in New Jersey to do research on the classification and education of “feebleminded” children. He soon realized that a diagnostic instrument would be required and was, therefore, pleased to read of the 1908 Binet-Simon scale. He quickly set about translating the scale, making minor changes so that it would be applicable to American children (Goddard, 1910a). Goddard (1910b) tested 378 residents of the Vineland facility and categorized them by diagnosis and mental age. He classified 73

residents as idiots because their mental age was 2 years or lower; 205 residents were termed imbeciles with mental age of 3 to 7 years; and 100 residents were deemed feebleminded with mental age of 8 to 12 years. It is instructive to note that originally neutral and descriptive terms for portraying levels of mental retardation— idiot, imbecile, and feebleminded—have made their way into the everyday lexicon of pejorative labels. In fact, Goddard made his own contribution by coining the diagnostic term moron (from the Greek moronia, meaning “foolish”). Goddard (1911) also tested 1,547 normal children with his translation of the Binet-Simon scales. He considered children whose mental age was four or more years behind their chronological age to be feebleminded—these constituted 3 percent of his sample. Considering that all of these children were found outside of institutions for the retarded, 3 percent is rather an alarming rate of mental deficiency. Goddard (1911) was of the opinion that these children should be segregated so that they would be

prevented from “contaminating society.” These early studies piqued Goddard’s curiosity about “feebleminded” citizenry and the societal burdens they imposed. He also gained a reputation as one of the leading experts on the use of intelligence tests to identify persons with impaired intellect. His talents were soon in heavy demand. The Binet-Simon and Immigration In 1910, Goddard was invited to Ellis Island by the commissioner of immigration to help make the examination of immigrants more accurate. A dark and foreboding folklore had grown up around mental deficiency and immigration in the early 1900s: It was believed that the feebleminded were

degenerate beings responsible for many if not most social problems; that they reproduced at an alarming rate and menaced the nation’s overall biological fitness; and that their numbers were being incremented by undesirable “new” immigrants from southern and eastern

European countries who had largely supplanted the “old” immigrants from northern and western Europe. (Gelb, 1986)

Initially, Goddard was unconcerned about the supposed threat of feeblemindedness posed by the immigrants. He wrote that adequate statistics did not exist and that the prevalent opinions about undue percentages of mentally defective immigrants were “grossly overestimated” (Goddard, 1912). However, with repeated visits to Ellis Island, Goddard became convinced that the rates of feeblemindedness were much higher than estimated by the physicians who staffed the immigration service. Within a year, he reversed his opinions entirely and called for congressional funding so that Ellis Island could be staffed with experts trained in the use of intelligence tests. In the following decade, Goddard became an apostle for the use of intelligence tests to identify feebleminded immigrants. Although he wrote that the rates of mentally deficient immigrants were “alarming,” he did not join the popular call for immigration restriction (Gelb, 1986).

The story of Goddard and his concern for the “menace of feeblemindedness,” as Gould (1981) has satirically put it, is often ignored or downplayed in books on psychological testing. The majority of textbooks on testing do not mention or refer to Goddard at all. The few books that do mention him usually state that Goddard “used the tests in institutions for the retarded,” which is surely an understatement. In his influential History of Psychological Testing, DuBois (1970) has a portrait of Goddard but devotes less than one line of text to him. The fact is that Goddard was one of the most influential American psychologists of the early 1900s. Any thoughtful person must, therefore, wonder why so many contemporary authors have ignored or slighted the person who first translated and applied Binet’s tests in the United States. We will attempt an answer here, based in part on Goddard’s original writing, but also relying on Gould’s (1981) critique of Goddard’s voluminous writings on mental deficiency and intelligence testing. We refer to Gelb’s (1986) more sympathetic portrayal of Goddard as well.

Perhaps Goddard has been ignored in the textbooks because he was a strict hereditarian who conceived of intelligence in simpleminded Mendelian terms. No doubt his call for colonization of “morons” so as to restrict their breeding has won him contemporary disfavor as well. And his insistence that much undesirable behavior—crime, alcoholism, prostitution—was due to inherited mental deficiency also does not sit well with the modern environmentalist position. However, the most likely reason that modern authors have ignored Goddard is that he exemplified a large number of early prominent psychologists who engaged in the blatant misuse of intelligence testing. In his efforts to demonstrate that high rates of immigrants with mental retardation were entering the United States each day, Goddard sent his assistants to Ellis Island to administer his English translation of the Binet-Simon tests to newly arrived immigrants. The tests were administered through a translator, not long after the immigrants walked ashore. We can guess that

many of the immigrants were frightened, confused, and disoriented. Thus, a test devised in French, then translated to English was, in turn, retranslated back to Yiddish, Hungarian, Italian, or Russian; administered to bewildered farmers and laborers who had just endured an Atlantic crossing; and interpreted according to the original French norms. What did Goddard find and what did he make of his results? In small samples of immigrants (22 to 50), his assistants found 83 percent of the Jews, 80 percent of the Hungarians, 79 percent of the Italians, and 87 percent of the Russians to be feebleminded, that is, below age 12 on the Binet-Simon scales (Goddard, 1917). His interpretation of these findings is, by turns, skeptically cautious and then provocatively alarmist. In one place he claims that his study “makes no determination of the actual percentage, even of these groups, who are feebleminded.” Yet, later in the report he states that his figures would only need to be revised by “a relatively small amount” in order to find the actual percentages of feeblemindedness among

immigrant groups. Furthermore, he concludes that the intelligence of the average immigrant is low, “perhaps of moron grade,” but then goes on to cite environmental deprivation as the primary culprit. Simultaneously, Goddard appears to favor deportation for low IQ immigrants but also provides the humanitarian perspective that we might be able to use “moron laborers” if only “we are wise enough to train them properly.” There is much, much more to the Goddard era of early intelligence testing, and the interested reader is urged to consult Gould (1981) and Gelb (1986). The most important point that we wish to stress here is that—like many other early psychologists—Goddard’s scholarly views were influenced by the social ideologies of his time. Finally, Goddard was a complex scholar who refined and contradicted his professional opinions on numerous occasions. One ironic example: After the damage was done and his writings had helped restrict immigration, Goddard (1928) recanted, concluding that feeblemindedness was not incurable and that the

feebleminded did not need to be segregated in institutions. The Goddard chapter in the history of testing serves as a reminder that even well-meaning persons operating within generally accepted social norms can misuse psychological tests. We need be ever mindful that disinterested “science” can be harnessed to the goals of a pernicious social ideology. Testing for Giftedness: Leta Stetter Hollingworth One of the earliest uses of IQ tests like the Stanford-Binet was testing for giftedness. A pioneer in this application was Leta Stetter Hollingworth (1886–1939) who spent her short career (she died of cancer at the age of 53) focusing on the psychology of genius. In one study, Hollingworth (1928) demonstrated that children of high genius (Stanford-Binet IQs hovering around 165) showed significantly greater school achievement than those of mere ordinary genius (IQs clustering around 146). In another study, she dispelled the belief, common

at the time, that gifted children should not be moved ahead in school because they would lag behind older children in penmanship and other motor skills (Hollingworth & Monahan, 1926). In yet another study, she found that highly gifted adolescents were judged by total strangers to be significantly better looking than matched controls of the same age (Hollingworth, 1935). Hollingworth was a prolific researcher who advanced the science of IQ testing. Being an idealist, she was ahead of her time. She proposed a revolving fund from which gifted children could draw for their development, with the moral (but not legal) obligation to pay the money back in 20 years. She surmised that such a fund would grow exponentially over the decades and benefit the nation in unforeseeable ways (H. Hollingworth, 1943). Unfortunately, this remarkable plan never came to fruition. Hollingworth also was a feminist who attributed gender differences in eminence and achievement to social and cultural impacts: It is undesirable to seek for the cause of sex

differences in eminence in ultimate and

obscure affective and intellectual differences until we have exhausted as a cause the known, obvious, and inescapable fact that women bear and rear the children, and that this has had as an inevitable sequel the occupation of housekeeping, a field where eminence is not possible. As a corollary it may be added that . . . It is desirable, for both the enrichment of society and the peace of individuals, that women may find a way to vary from their mode as men do, and yet procreate. Such a course is at present hindered by individual prejudice, poverty, and the enactment of legal measures. But public expectation will slowly change, as the conditions that generated that expectation have already changed, and in another century the solution to this problem will have been found. (Hollingworth, 1914, p. 529)

It is now a century, more or less, since Hollingworth’s proclamation. Gender differences in eminence and achievement still exist, but they have been greatly reduced.

The Stanford-Binet: The Early Mainstay of IQ Although it was Goddard who first translated the Binet scales in the United States, it was Stanford professor Lewis M. Terman (1857– 1956) who popularized IQ testing with his revision of the Binet scales in 1916. The new Stanford-Binet, as it was called, was a substantial revision, not just an extension, of the earlier Binet scales. Among the many changes that led to the unquestioned prestige of the Stanford-Binet was the use of the now familiar IQ for expressing test results. The number of items was increased to 90, and the new scale was suitable for those with mental retardation, children, and both normal and “superior” adults. In addition, the Stanford-Binet had clear and well-organized instructions for administration and scoring. Great care had been taken in securing a representative sample of subjects for use in the standardization of the test. As Good- enough (1949) notes: “The publication of the Stanford Revision marked the end of the initial

period of experimentation and uncertainty. Once and for all, intelligence testing had been put on a firm basis.” The Stanford-Binet was the standard of intelligence testing for decades. New tests were always validated in terms of their correlations with this measure. It continued its preeminence through revisions in 1937 and 1960, by which time the Wechsler scales (Wechsler, 1949, 1955) had begun to compete with it. The latest revision of the Stanford-Binet was completed in 2003. This test and the Wechsler scales are discussed in detail in a later chapter. It is worth mentioning here that the Wechsler scales became a quite popular alternative to the Stanford-Binet mainly because they provided more than just an IQ score. In addition to Full Scale IQ, the Wechsler scales provided 10 to 12 subtest scores and a Verbal and Performance IQ. By contrast, the earlier versions of the Stanford- Binet supplied only a single overall summary score, the global IQ.

2.10 GROUP TESTS AND THE CLASSIFICATION OF WWI ARMY RECRUITS Given the American penchant for efficiency, it was only natural that researchers would seek group mental tests to supplement the relatively time-consuming individual intelligence tests imported from France. Among the first to develop group tests was Pyle (1913), who published schoolchildren norms for a battery consisting of such well-worn measures as memory span, digit-symbol substitution, and oral word association (quickly writing down words in response to a stimulus word). Pintner (1917) revised and expanded Pyle’s battery, adding to it a timed cancellation test in which the child crossed out the letter a wherever it appeared in a body of text. But group tests were slow to catch on, partly because the early versions still had to be scored laboriously by hand. The idea of a completely objective test with a simple scoring key was

inconsistent with tests such as logical memory for which the judgment of the examiner was required in scoring. Most amazing of all—at least to anyone who has spent any time as a student in American schools—the multiple- choice question was not yet in general use. The slow pace of developments in group testing picked up dramatically as the United States entered World War I in 1917. It was then that Robert M. Yerkes, a well-known psychology professor at Harvard, convinced the U.S. government and the Army that all of its 1.75 million recruits should be given intelligence tests for purposes of classification and assignment (Yerkes, 1919). Immediately upon being commissioned into the Army as a colonel, Yerkes assembled a Committee on the Examination of Recruits, which met at the Vineland school in New Jersey to develop the new group tests for the assessment of Army recruits. Yerkes chaired the committee; other famous members included Goddard and Terman.

Two group tests emerged from this collaboration: the Army Alpha and the Army Beta. It would be difficult to overestimate the influence of the Alpha and Beta on subsequent intelligence tests. The format and content of these tests inspired developments in group and individual testing for decades to come. We discuss these tests in some detail so that the reader can appreciate their influence on modern intelligence tests. The Army Alpha and Beta Examinations The Alpha was based on the then unpublished work of Otis (1918) and consisted of eight verbally loaded tests for average and high- functioning recruits. The eight tests were (1) following oral directions, (2) arithmetical reasoning, (3) practical judgment, (4) synonym– antonym pairs, (5) disarranged sentences, (6) number series completion, (7) analogies, and (8) information. Figure 2.1 lists some typical items from the Army Alpha examination.

The Army Beta was a nonverbal group test designed for use with illiterates and recruits whose first language was not English. It consisted of various visual-perceptual and motor tests such as tracing a path through mazes and visualizing the correct number of blocks depicted in a three-dimensional drawing. Figure 2.2 depicts the blackboard demonstrations for all eight parts of the Beta examination. In order to accommodate illiterate subjects and recent immigrants who did not comprehend English, Yerkes instructed the examiners to use largely pictorial and gestural methods for explaining the tests to the prospective Army recruits. The examiner and an assistant stood atop a platform at the front of the class and engaged in pantomime to explain each of the eight tests. The Army testing was intended to help segregate and eliminate the mentally incompetent, to classify men according to their mental ability, and to assist in the placement of competent men in responsible positions (Yerkes, 1921). However, it is not really clear whether

the Army made much use of the masses of data supplied by Yerkes and his eager assistants. A careful reading of his memoirs reveals that Yerkes did little more than produce favorable testimonials from high-ranking officers. In the main, his memoirs say that the Army could have saved millions of dollars and increased its efficiency if the testing data had been used. To some extent, the mountains of test data had little practical impact on the efficiency of the Army because of the resistance of the military mind to scientific innovation. However, it is also true that the Army brass had good reason to doubt the validity of the test results. For example, an internal memorandum described the use of pantomime in the instructions to the nonverbal Beta examination: For the sake of making results from the various

camps comparable, the examiners were ordered to follow a certain detailed and specific series of ballet antics, which had not only the merit of being perfectly incomprehensible and unrelated to mental testing, but also lent a highly confusing and

distracting mystical atmosphere to the whole performance, effectually preventing all approach to the attitude in which a subject should be while having his soul tested. (cited in Samelson, 1977)

In addition, the testing conditions left much to be desired, with wave upon wave of recruits ushered in one door, tested, and virtually shoved out the other side. Tens of thousands of recruits received a literal zero for many subtests, not because they were retarded but because they couldn’t fathom the instructions to these enigmatic new instruments. Many recruits fell asleep while the testers gave esoteric and mysterious pantomime instructions. On the positive side, the Army testing provided psychologists with a tremendous amount of experience in the psychometrics of test construction. Thousands of correlation coefficients were computed, including the prominent use of multiple correlations in the analysis of test data. Test construction graduated from an art to a science in a few short years.

2.11 EARLY EDUCATIONAL TESTING For good or for ill, Yerkes’s grand scheme for testing Army recruits helped to usher in the era of group tests. After World War I, inquiries rushed in from industry, public schools, and colleges about the potential applications of these straightforward tests that almost anyone could administer and score (Yerkes, 1921). The psychologists who had worked with Yerkes soon left the service and carried with them to industry and education their newfound notion of paper- and-pencil tests of intelligence.

FIGURE 2.1 Sample Items from the Army Alpha Examination Source: Reprinted from Yerkes, R. M. (Ed.). (1921). Psychological examining in the United States Army. Memoirs the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 15. With permission from the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC.

Note: Examinees received verbal instructions for each subtest.

FIGURE 2.2 The Blackboard Demonstrations for All Eight Parts of the Beta Examination Source: Reprinted from Yerkes, R. M. (Ed.). (1921). Psychological examining in the United States Army. Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 15. With permission from the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC. The Army Alpha and Beta were also released for general use. These tests quickly became the prototypes for a large family of group tests and influenced the character of intelligence tests, college entrance examinations, scholastic achievement tests, and aptitude tests. To cite just one specific consequence of the Army testing, the National Research Council, a government organization of scientists, devised the National Intelligence Test, which was eventually given to 7 million children in the United States during the 1920s. Thus, such well-known tests as the Wechsler scales, the Scholastic Aptitude Tests, and the Graduate Record Exam actually have roots that reach back to Yerkes, Otis, and the

mass testing of Army recruits during World War I. The College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) was established at the turn of the twentieth century to help avoid duplication in the testing of applicants to U.S. colleges. The early exams had been of the short answer essay format, but this was to change quickly when C. C. Brigham, a disciple of Yerkes, became CEEB secretary after World War I. In 1925, the College Board decided to construct a scholastic aptitude test for use in college admissions (Goslin, 1963). The new tests reflected the now familiar objective format of unscrambling sentences, completing analogies, and filling in the next number in a sequence. Machine scoring was introduced in the 1930s, making objective group tests even more efficient than before. These tests then evolved into the present College Board tests, in particular, the Scholastic Aptitude Tests, now known as the Scholastic Assessment Tests. The functions of the CEEB were later subsumed under the nonprofit Educational Testing Service

(ETS). The ETS directed the development, standardization, and validation of such well- known tests as the Graduate Record Examination, the Law School Admissions Test, and the Peace Corps Entrance Tests. Meanwhile, Terman and his associates at Stanford were busy developing standardized achievement tests. The Stanford Achievement Test (SAchT) was first published in 1923; a modern version of it is still in wide use today. From the very beginning, the SAchT incorporated such modern psychometric principles as norming the subtests so that within-subject variability could be assessed and selecting a very large and representative standardization sample.

2.12 THE DEVELOPMENT OF APTITUDE TESTS Aptitude tests measure more specific and delimited abilities than intelligence tests. Traditionally, intelligence tests assess a more global construct such as general intelligence,

although there are exceptions to this trend that will be discussed later. By contrast, a single aptitude test will measure just one ability domain, and a multiple aptitude test battery will provide scores in several distinctive ability areas. The development of aptitude tests lagged behind that of intelligence tests for two reasons, one statistical, the other social. The statistical problem was that a new technique, factor analysis, was often needed to discern which aptitudes were primary and, therefore, distinct from each other. Research on this question had been started quite early by Spearman (1904) but was not refined until the 1930s (Spearman, 1927; Kelley, 1928; Thurstone, 1938). This new family of techniques, factor analysis, allowed Thurstone to conclude that there were specific factors of primary mental ability such as verbal comprehension, word fluency, number facility, spatial ability, associative memory, perceptual speed, and general reasoning (Thurstone, 1938; Thurstone & Thurstone, 1941). More will be said about this in the later chapters on

intelligence and ability testing. The important point here is that Thurstone and his followers thought that global measures of intelligence did not, so to speak, “cut nature at its joints.” As a result, it was felt that such measures as the Stanford-Binet were not as useful as multiple aptitude test batteries in determining a person’s intellectual strengths and weaknesses. The second reason for the slow growth of aptitude batteries was the absence of a practical application for such refined instruments. It was not until World War II that a pressing need arose to select candidates who were highly qualified for very difficult and specialized tasks. The job requirements of pilots, flight engineers, and navigators were very specific and demanding. A general estimate of intellectual ability, such as provided by the group intelligence tests used in World War I, was not sufficient to choose good candidates for flight school. The armed forces solved this problem by developing a specialized aptitude battery of 20 tests that was administered to men who passed preliminary screening tests. These measures proved

invaluable in selecting pilots, navigators, and bombadiers, as reflected in the much lower washout rates of men selected by test battery instead of the old methods (Goslin, 1963). Such tests are still used widely in the armed services.

2.13 PERSONALITY AND VOCATIONAL TESTING AFTER WWI Although such rudimentary assessment methods as the free association technique had been used before the turn of the twentieth century by Galton, Kraepelin, and others, it was not until World War I that personality tests emerged in a form resembling their contemporary appearance. As has happened so often in the history of testing, it was once again a practical need that served as the impetus for this new development. Modern personality testing began when Woodworth attempted to develop an instrument for detecting Army recruits who were susceptible to psychoneurosis. Virtually all

the modern personality inventories, schedules, and questionnaires owe a debt to Woodworth’s Personal Data Sheet (1919). The Personal Data Sheet consisted of 116 questions that the subject was to answer by underlining Yes or No. The questions were exclusively of the “face obvious” variety and, for the most part, involved fairly serious symptomatology. Representative items included: • Do ideas run through your head so that you

cannot sleep? • Were you considered a bad boy? • Are you bothered by a feeling that things are

not real? • Do you have a strong desire to commit

suicide? Readers familiar with the Minnesota Multi- phasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) must surely recognize the debt that this more recent inventory has to Woodworth’s instrument. The next major development was an inventory of neurosis, the Thurstone Personality Schedule (Thurstone & Thurstone, 1930). After first culling hundreds of items answerable in the yes-

no? manner from Woodworth’s inventory and other sources, Thurstone rationally keyed items in terms of how the neurotic would typically answer them. Reflecting Thurstone’s penchant for statistical finesse, this inventory was one of the first to use the method of internal consistency whereby each prospective item was correlated with the total score on the tentatively identified scale to determine whether it belonged on the scale. From the Thurstone test sprang the Bern-reuter Personality Inventory (Bernreuter, 1931). It was a little more refined than its Thurstone predecessor, measuring four personality dimensions: neurotic tendency, self-sufficiency, introversion-extroversion, and dominance- submission. A major innovation in test construction was that a single test item could contribute to more than one scale. Any chronology of self-report inventories must surely include the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI; Hathaway & McKinley, 1940). This test and its revision, the MMPI-2, are discussed in detail later. It will

suffice for now to point out that the scales of the MMPI were constructed by the method that Woodworth pioneered, contrasting the responses of normal and psychiatrically disturbed subjects. In addition, the MMPI introduced the use of validity scales to determine fake bad, fake good, and random response patterns.

2.14 THE ORIGINS OF PROJECTIVE TESTING The projective approach originated with the word association method pioneered by Francis Galton in the late 1800s. Galton gave himself four seconds to come up with as many associations as possible to a stimulus word and then categorized his associations as parrotlike, image-mediated, or histrionic representations. This latter category convinced him that mental operations “sunk wholly below the level of consciousness” were at play. Some historians have even speculated that Freud’s application of free association as a therapeutic tool in

psychoanalysis sprang from Galton’s paper published in Brain in 1879 (Forrest, 1974). Galton’s work was continued in Germany by Wundt and Kraepelin and finally brought to fruition by Jung (1910). Jung’s test consisted of 100 stimulus words. For each word, the subject was to reply as quickly as possible with the first word coming to mind. Kent and Rosanoff (1910) gave the association method a distinctively American flavor by tabulating the reactions of 1,000 normal subjects to a list of 100 stimulus words. These tables were designed to provide a basis for comparing the reactions of normal and “insane” subjects. While the Americans were pursuing the empirical approach to objective personality testing, a young Swiss psychiatrist, Hermann Rorschach (1884–1922), was developing a completely different vehicle for studying personality. Rorschach was strongly influenced by Jungian and psychoanalytic thinking, so it was natural that his new approach focused on the tendency of patients to reveal their innermost conflicts unconsciously when

responding to ambiguous stimuli. The Rorschach and other projective tests discussed subsequently were predicated on the projective hypothesis: When responding to ambiguous or unstructured stimuli, we inadvertently disclose our innermost needs, fantasies, and conflicts. Rorschach was convinced that people revealed important personality dimensions in their responses to inkblots. He spent years developing just the right set of 10 inkblots and systematically analyzed the responses of personal friends and different patient groups (Rorschach, 1921). Unfortunately, he died only a year after his monograph was published, and it was up to others to complete his work. Developments in the Rorschach are reviewed later in the text. Whereas Rorschach’s test was originally developed to reveal the innermost workings of the abnormal subject, the TAT, or Thematic Apperception Test (Morgan & Murray, 1935), was developed as an instrument to study normal personality. Of course, both have since been

expanded for testing with the entire continuum of human behavior. The TAT consists of a series of pictures that largely depict one or more persons engaged in an ambiguous interaction. The subject is shown one picture at a time and told to make up a story about it. He or she is instructed to be as dramatic as possible, to discuss thoughts and feelings, and to describe the past, present, and future of what is depicted in the picture. Murray (1938) believed that underlying personality needs, such as the need for achievement, would be revealed by the contents of the stories. Although numerous scoring systems were developed, clinicians in the main have relied on an impressionistic analysis to make sense of TAT protocols. Modern applications of the TAT are discussed in a later chapter. The sentence completion technique was also begun during this era with the work of Payne (1928). There have been numerous extensions and variations on the technique, which consists of giving subjects a stem such as “I am bored

when ———,” and asking them to complete the sentence. Some modern applications are discussed later, but it can be mentioned now that the problem of scoring and interpretation, which vexed early sentence completion test developers, is still with us today. An entirely new approach to projective testing was taken by Goodenough (1926), who tried to determine not just intellectual level but also the interests and personality traits of children by analyzing their drawings. Buck’s (1948) test, the House-Tree-Person, was a little more standardized and structured and required the subject to draw a house, a tree, and a person. Machover’s (1949) Personality Projection in the Drawing of the Human Figure was the logical extension of the earlier work. Figure drawing as a projective approach to understanding personality is still used today, and a later chapter discusses modern developments in this practice. Meanwhile, projective testing in Europe was dominated by the Szondi Test, a wacky instrument based on wholly faulty premises. Lipot Szondi was a Hungarian-born Swiss

psychiatrist who believed that major psychiatric disorders were caused by recessive genes. His test consisted of 48 photographs of psychiatric patients divided into six sets of the following eight types: homosexual, epileptic, sadistic, hysteric, catatonic, paranoiac, manic, and depressive (Deri, 1949). From each set of eight pictures, the subject was instructed to select the two pictures he or she liked best and the two disliked most. A person who consistently preferred one kind of picture in the six sets was presumed to have some recessive genes that made him or her have sympathy for the pictured person. Thus, projective preferences were presumed to reveal recessive genes predisposing the individual to specific psychiatric disturbances. Deri (1949) imported the test to the United States and changed the rationale. She did not argue for a recessive genetic explanation of picture choice but explained such preferences on the basis of unconscious identification with the characteristics of the photographed patients. This was a more palatable theoretical basis for

the test than the dubious genetic theories of Szondi. Nonetheless, empirical research cast doubt on the validity of the Szondi Test, and it shortly faded into oblivion.

2.15 THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTEREST INVENTORIES While the clinicians were developing measures for analyzing personality and unconscious conflicts, other psychologists were devising measures for guidance and counseling of the masses of more normal persons. Chief among such measures was the interest inventory, which has roots going back to Thorndike’s (1912) study of developmental trends in the interests of 100 college students. In 1919–1920, Yoakum developed a pool of 1,000 items relating to interests from childhood through early maturity (DuBois, 1970). Many of these items were incorporated in the Carnegie Interest Inventory. Cowdery (1926–1927) improved and refined previous work on the Carnegie instrument by increasing the number of items, comparing

responses of three criterion groups (doctors, engineers, and lawyers) with control groups of nonprofessionals, and developing a weighting formula for items. He was also the first psychometrician to realize the importance of cross validation. He tested his new scales on additional groups of doctors, engineers, and lawyers to ensure that the discriminations found in the original studies were reliable group differences rather than capitalizations on error variance. Edward K. Strong (1884–1963) revised Cowdery’s test and devoted 36 years to the development of empirical keys for the modified instrument known as the Strong Vocational Interest Blank (SVIB). Persons taking the test could be scored on separate keys for several dozen occupations, providing a series of scores of immeasurable value in vocational guidance. The SVIB became one of the most widely used tests of all time (Strong, 1927). Its modern version, the Strong Interest Inventory, is still widely used by guidance counselors.

For decades the only serious competitor to the SVIB was the Kuder Preference Record (Kuder, 1934). The Kuder differed from the Strong by forcing choices within triads of items. The Kuder was an ipsative test; that is, it compared the relative strength of interests within the individual, rather than comparing his or her responses to various professional groups. More recent revisions of the Kuder Preference Record include the Kuder General Interest Survey and the Kuder Occupational Interest Survey (Kuder, 1966; Kuder & Diamond, 1979).

2.16 THE EMERGENCE OF STRUCTURED PERSONALITY TESTS Beginning in the 1940s, personality tests began to flourish as useful tools for clinical evaluation and also for assessment of the normal spectrum of functioning. The most respected and highly researched device of this genre is the MMPI, initially conceived to facilitate psychiatric

diagnosis (Hathaway & McKinley, 1940, 1942, 1943). Subsequently, applications of this empirically based true-false inventory have expanded to include assessment of personal and social adjustment, pre-employment screening of individuals in high-risk law enforcement positions, testing of patients in medical and substance abuse settings, evaluation of persons in forensic or courtroom proceedings, and appraisal of college students for career counseling (Butcher, 2005). Many other useful tests followed alongside this pathbreaking measure, now in its second edition (MMPI-2). Some widely used alternative tests include the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF), a test derived from factor analysis, useful in the evaluation of normal and abnormal personality; the California Psychological Inventory (CPI, Gough, 1987) a spinoff from the MMPI that measures folk concepts like responsibility, dominance, tolerance, and flexibility; and, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI; Myers & McCaulley, 1985), a self-report inventory based on Carl Jung’s

theory of personality types. The MBTI is widely used in corporate settings. More recently, some personality tests demonstrate allegiance to a theory known as the “big 5” model, which is commonly viewed as the consensus model of personality (Goldberg, 1990). According to this approach, five factors of personality are sufficient to capture the important domains of individual functioning. These factors are neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. We discuss the five-factor model in Chapter 8, Origins of Personality Testing. Well respected tests loyal to this approach include the NEO-Personality Inventory-Revised (Costa & McCrae, 1992), the Five-Factor Personality Inventory (FFPI, Hendriks, Hofstee, & De Raad, 1999), and the NEO-Personality Inventory-3 (Costa, McCrae, & Martin, 2005). Tens of millions of individuals undergo personality testing each year. According to its publisher, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is given to more than 1.5 million individuals

annually, including employees of most Fortune 500 companies. Worldwide, an estimated 15 million persons take the MMPI in its different versions each year (MMPI-A, for adolescents, MMPI-2, for adults) (Paul, 2004). The test has been translated with wild profusion into dozens of languages (Butcher, 2000). Another widely translated test is the 16 Personality Factor (16PF), which has been adapted into 35 languages. In each setting, the test is interpreted according to local norms (Cattell & Mead, 2008). Although exact figures are not available, beyond a doubt the 16PF is taken by millions of individuals annually.

2.17 THE EXPANSION AND PROLIFERATION OF TESTING In the twenty-first century, the reach of testing continues to increase, both in one-to-one clinical uses and in group testing for societal applications. Regarding one-to-one assessment,

clinical psychology has spawned several new specialties, each requiring innovative approaches to testing. For example, once merely an area of focus within psychological practice, clinical neuropsychology is now a well-defined domain of expertise with specialized tests used mainly by those with proper credentials. In a massive tome that runs to 1,240 pages, Strauss, Sherman, and Spreen (2006) provide norms and commentary for nearly 100 neuropsychological tests and scales. Health psychology is another emerging specialty that has generated many new tests, as evidenced by the twin volumes Measuring Health and Measuring Disease (Bowling, 1997, 2001). These books detail hundreds of measures of health status and illness, including tests of well-being, quality of life measures, and disease impact scales. Additional specialties, each with a panoply of new tests, include child clinical psychology, forensic psychology, and industrial- organizational psychology. The number of available tests for individual clinical assessment surely must number in the many thousands.

Group testing for broad social purposes such as educational assessment, entry to college and graduate school, and certification in the professions also continues to expand. Testing is probably more widely used and more important now than at any time in history. Consider just one arena for group testing, the millions of standardized tests administered every year in public school systems. According to FairTest, a national advocacy group for fair and open testing, more than 100 million standardized tests —including achievement, IQ, screening, and readiness tests—were given in America’s public schools in 2007 (www.fairtest.org/testing- explosion-0). Regarding group testing for college and graduate school admissions, based on relevant websites, more than 3 million students take the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) or the American College Test (ACT) each year, and more than 600,000 thousand students complete the Graduate Record Exam each year. Many tens of thousands of applicants also take specialized tests for professional training like the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test),

the LSAT (Law School Admissions Test), and the GMAT (Graduate Management Admissions Test).

2.18 EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE AND OUTCOMES

ASSESSMENT Evidence-based practice is an important trend in health care, education, and other fields. This recent movement will greatly boost the need for assessment with tests and outcome measures. According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM, 2001), evidence-based practice is “the integration of best research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values (p. 147).” The advance of evidence-based practice is part of a worldwide trend to require proof that treatments and interventions yield measurable positive outcomes. Of course, whenever measurement is needed, psychological tests often are the best alternative. In education, for example, recent federal legislation such as the

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act (2001), which promotes standards-based educational change, absolutely requires regular academic achievement testing with validated instruments. In 2012, a revised version of NCLB was reauthorized. This law likely will remain a driving force behind increased educational assessment for years to come. In psychology, the evidence-based movement has led to evidence-based psychological practice (EBPP), which mandates the practice of empirically supported interventions (APA Task Force, 2006). EBPP also involves the use of outcomes assessment with psychotherapy patients. Increasingly, insurance companies require periodic assessments with short, simple outcome measures as a condition for ongoing reimbursement. EBPP is here to stay. It will promote increased testing with brief measures such as the Outcome Rating Scale (ORS, Miller & Duncan, 2000), an index of a patient’s current functioning. The ORS is a visual analogue scale consisting of four 10-centimeter lines, each representing a bipolar dimension of well-being

(individual, interpersonal, social, and general). The patient merely places a hash mark on each line. The distance from the starting point in centimeters is the score for each dimension. These scores are summed to obtain the total score, which can range from 0 to 40. The scale takes less than a minute to complete, and provides a surprisingly reliable and valid index of current functioning (Miller, Duncan, Brown, Sparks, & Claud, 2003). We conclude this chapter on the history of psychological testing by referring the reader to the brief tabular summary of landmark events found in Appendix A at the end of the book.