Cyril L. Burt

Cyril L. Burt (March 3, 1883 - October 10, 1971) was a British Educational Psychologist, investigated differences in intelligence among social classes, gender and race, and the intelligence on separated twins. It was because his research that we discovered later why the children from poorer family gain knowledge slower than ones from middle class and up, and the Ericsson study of 10.000 hours of mastery was indirectly inspired by. He also helped women to fight the gender disparity using a part of his research.

Influences
Student of: McDougall
Influenced by: Galton, Spearman
Students: Eysenck
Influenced: Jensen, Vernon
Time Period: Contemporary Explorations

Education
Oxford Greats Course, Jesus College, Oxford, (1902-1907)
Teachers' Diploma, Jesus College, Oxford (1908)
Studied psychology under Oswald Külpe at the University of Würzburg, Germany (Summer, 1908)

Career
Lecturer in Experimental Psychology, University of Liverpool (1908-1913)
Chief Psychologist, London County Council (1913-1932)
Professor of Educational Psychology, London Day Training Centre (1924-1932)
Charles Spearman Chair of Psychology, University College, London (1932-1950)
First psychologist to be knighted (1946)
Editor and co-editor, British Journal of Statistical Psychology (1947-1963)
Published more than 200 articles after his retirement from teaching (1950-1971)
First British subject to win the (American) Thorndike Prize, (1971)
President of British Psychological Society (1942)

Definition of Intelligence
"…[intelligence] denotes, first of all, a quality that is intellectual and not emotional or moral: in measuring it we try to rule out the effects of the child's zeal, interest, industry, and the like. Secondly, it denotes a general capacity, a capacity that enters into everything the child says or does or thinks; any want of 'intelligence' will therefore be revealed to some degree in almost all that he attempts; a weakness in some limited or specialized ability-for example, in the ability to speak or to read, to learn or to calculate-is of itself by no means a sign of defective intelligence. Thirdly, intelligence is by definition an innate capacity: hence a lack of it is not necessarily proved by a lack of educational knowledge or skill" (Burt, 1957, p. 64-65).

Major Contributions
Founded the field of Educational Psychology in Great Britain by creating and implementing a system for identifying mentally retarded students
Helped to establish the Eleven-Plus testing program in Great Britain
Helped to expand the statistical technique of factor analysis
Advocated for the hereditarian position: He is famous (and notorious) for his conclusions about the intelligence of identical twins reared apart
Investigated differences in intelligence among social classes, gender and race
Published nine books and more than three hundred articles, lectures and book chapters

Ideas & Interests
Sir Cyril Burt remains one of the most complex and intriguing figures in the history of intelligence testing. He was a pioneer of educational psychology in England and was one of the most respected and honored psychologists of his time. However, he had controversial ideas regarding the heritability of intelligence, and there is ample evidence that he used fraudulent data to support his views (Scarr, 1994). Throughout Cyril Burt's lifetime he remained committed to proving that intelligence is primarily and inherited characteristic. His long research career began in 1909 with a study comparing the intelligence of boys enrolled in an elite preparatory academy with the intelligence of boys attending a regular school.* To control for environmental influences, he chose measures (such as mirror drawing) that were unlikely to have been learned during the students' lifetimes. Since the prep school students scored higherr than the other students, he concluded that they had more innate intelligence. Moreover, he noted that the fathers of the prep school boys were more successful than the fathers the other boys. He interpreted this to mean that the prep school boys had benefited from their fathers' superior genetic endowments (Fancher, 1985). Burt did not believe that 100% of intelligence is inherited. In fact, he acknowledged that environmental influences are important. However, he argued that even environmental influences can have genetic causes. In 1922 he wrote:
That children of better social status succeed better with the Binet- Simon scale is not necessarily an objection to that scale; nor is it necessarily a ground for constructing separate norms: for, by birth as well as by home training, children who are superior in social status may be equally superior in genral ability. Conversely, if a child proves defective according to a scale that is otherwise authentic, the mere fact that his family is poor and his dwelling a hovel does not of itself condone his deficiency. His parents' home may be mean precisely because their hereditary intelligence is mean. Whether poverty and its accompaniments affect the child's performances in any direct fashion-whether, for example, in the Binet-Simon tests a child that inherits an abundance of natural ability may be handicapped through a lack of cultural opportunities-is a further and a separate issue (Burt, 1922, p. 192). Later in Burt's life he would be accused of using fraudulent twin data to support the primacy of genetics over envirnoment. Between 1943 and 1966 he published a series of articles on the intelligence of identical twins who had been raised in different homes. Every article confirmed that each set twins' intelligence test scores were extremely similar. After Burt's death critics pointed out several problems with these articles, including: The raw data supporting his results had either disappeared or had never existed, an inability to confirm that his research assistants were indeed real people, extremely unlikely similarities in the correlation coefficients of IQ scores across studies, inconsistencies in the numbers of twins he reported using, and the implausibility of finding 53 sets of identical twins who had been reared apart. Although Burt is famous for his controversial hereditarian views, he took precisely the opposite stance on the issue of juvenile delinquency. Although Burt's family was middleclass, he grew up in a working class area and many of his boyhood friends were from poor families (Fancher, 1985). He was therefore made keenly aware of the environmental conditions which might lead to social and legal problems. While lecturing at Liverpool, he spent some time living in the University Settlement, a housing project on the on the outskirts of a slum. The settlement had been created for the specific purpose of exposing researchers to slum conditions. Burt came away from this experience convinced that juvenile delinquency was not a hereditary blight, but an environmental one. In The Young Delinquent, he lamented that "contagion is all too often mistaken for heredity" (Burt, 1925). In 1926 Burt began advocating for a national testing program that could identify bright children from all socioeconomic levels. He believed that this would establish a meritocracy, giving economically disadvantaged children educational opportunities that they would not otherwise receive. However, since he believed that economically disadvantaged children were also more likely to be genetically disadvantaged, he was convinced that the number of bright lower-class students identified would necessarily be much smaller than the number of bright upper class students. (Fancher, 1985) His proposed testing program was implemented, and a version of it is used in the United Kingdom to this day. Since Burt believed that intelligence is not fixed until children are approximately eleven years old, he suggested that all British students be tested at this age. Results of the "Eleven-Plus" exam would be used to sift students into grammar schools (for the high scorers) or modern schools (for the rest). These school placements were permanent. The Eleven-Plus program proved to be a double-edged sword: Since universities required grammar school training for admission, many lower-class youth received educational opportunities that they might not otherwise have enjoyed. However, most students were placed in the modern schools--ending forever their chances of receiving a university education. (Fancher, 1985). Burt also had environmentalist leanings on the issue of intelligence and race. Like many psychologists of his time, he believed that the European races were intellectually superior to the so-called "savage races". However, he did not attribute this superiority entirely to genetics (Hearnshaw, 1979). In a 1912 Eugenics Review article he stated: "In the case of the individual we found the influence of heredity large and indisputable; in the case of the race, small and controversial." (Burt, 1912) Burt was also interested in gender differences in intelligence. One of his earliest studies investigated the differences in the perceptual and motor skills, reasoning ability, and emotionality of male and female schoolchildren. His research team came to the surprising conclusion that "with few exceptions innate sex differences in mental constitution are astonishingly small--far smaller than common belief and common practice would lead us to expect" (Burt & Moore, 1912). Later in his career he offered evidence from a variety of sources pointing to the superior linguistic capabilities of girls, and suggested that at various periods in their development, girls are intellectually superior to their male counterparts. He noted however, that this superiority is transient, and that the overall cognitive differences between boys and girls are negligible. (Burt, 1922, p. 193). When viewed within the social context extant during this stage of Burt's career, it is reasonable to say that his work helped women to achieve gender parity within the school system. (Hearnshaw, 1979). *His experimental design did not actually allow for a direct comparison of the two groups. His conclusions were based on interpretations of data from within each group.

Selected Publications:
Burt, C. (1909). Experimental tests of general intelligence. British Journal of Psychology, 3, 94-177.
Burt, C. (1921). Mental and scholastic tests. London: P.S. King and Son.
Burt, C. (1935). The subnormal mind. London: Oxford University Press.
Burt C. (1940). The factors of the mind: An introduction to factor analysis in psychology. London: University of London Press.
Burt, C. (1957). The causes and treatments of backwardness (4th ed.). London: University of London Press.
Burt, C. (1975). The gifted child. New York: Wiley.

References:
Burt, C.L. (1912). The inheritance of mental characteristics. Eugenics Review, 4, 168-200.
Burt, C.L. (1925). The young delinquent. London: University of London Press.
Burt, C. (1957). The causes and treatments of backwardness (4th ed.). London: University of London Press.
Burt, C.L., & Moore, R.C. (1912). The mental differences between the sexes. Journal of Experimental Ped., 1, 273-84, 355-88.
Fancher, R.E. (1985). The intelligence men: Makers of the IQ controversy. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Hearnshaw, L.S. (1979). Cyril Burt, Psychologist. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univerisity Press.
Scarr, S. (1994). Burt, Cyril L. In R.J. Sternberg (Ed.), Encyclopedia of intelligence (Vol. 1). (pp. 231-234). New York: Macmillan.
www.intelltheory.com

Karl Pearson

Karl Pearson (1857-1936) was a British Mathematician, student of Galton, one of Wechsler teachers, and added most of the ideas and principles used in IQ testing and statistics, like standard deviation, for example. Yes, he is the one who discover it!

Student of: Galton
Students: Wechsler
Time Period: The Great Schools' Influence

Education:
King's College, Cambridge
Admitted to the bar at age 24 (1881)

Career:
In 1884 (age 27) he was appointed to the chair of Applied Mathematics at University College, London.
In 1890 he was appointed Lecturer on Gemoetyr at Gresham College.
Major Contribution

Karl Pearson developed some of the central techniques of modern statistics. In the early 1900's Pearson became interested in the work of Francis Galton, who wanted to find statistical relationships to explain how biological characteristics were passed down through generations. Pearson's research laid much of the foundation for 20th-century statistics, defining the meanings of correlation, regression analysis, and standard deviation. The ideas/principles: bi-serial _r_, chi-square, coefficient of contingency, coefficient of variation, correlation ration, kurtosis, moment coefficient, multiple correlation, partial correlation, normal curve, product moment, scedasticity, standard deviation,

Ideas and Interests
Poetry, philosophy, history of religion, law, the theory of elasticity

Publication

The Grammar of Science (1892)
The Life, Letters and Labours of Francis Galton (1930)

The Wissler Controversy

And don't we all like a bit of scandal? What was this about?

Clark Wissler (1870-1947) is best known today as an influential American anthropologist, but his early training was in psychology. His 1901 doctoral dissertation created an academic uproar by purportedly debunking some of the most influential intelligence theories of the time. The controversy was made scandalous by the fact that Wissler's findings discredited the research of his mentor, James McKeen Cattell. (Fancher, 1985, p. 48-49)  To appreciate the iconoclastic nature of the Wissler controversy, it is necessary to understand the importance of the research of two notable men who proceeded him: Francis Galton and James McKeen Cattell. Francis Galton (1822-1911) was a believer in the hereditary basis of intelligence, and is credited with popularizing the phrase "nature and nurture." He originated and named the eugenics movement, in service of which he created the basic idea of the intelligence test. (It is important to note however, that the term "intelligence test" did not come into being until later.) (Fancher, 1985) Galton believed that intelligence was a matter of neurological efficiency. Therefore, he theorized that it could be tested by measuring reaction time and sensory acuity. In the mid 1880s he established an anthropometric laboratory at London's South Kensington Museum, cleverly enticing visitors to spend three pence apiece to enjoy the novelty of undergoing a variety of psychophysical tests. Besides providing amusement for the museum's patrons, this unusual laboratory provided a vast amount of research data. (Fancher, 1985, pp. 36-37; Sternberg, 1990, p. 70-71) At about the same time, an American doctoral student, James McKeen Cattell (1860-1944) was conducting a series of reaction time experiments in Germany. When he became aware of Galton's anthropometric laboratory, he began to correspond with him, and designed a series of 50 psychophysical tests based on Galton's earlier work. He established his own anthropometric laboratory at Cambridge University, and became a successful international advocate of the psychophysical approach to mental testing. (Fancher, 1985, pp. 45-47) The work of these two men was of pivotal importance to the field of experimental psychology. Psychophysical testing had great popular appeal, and was being enthusiastically embraced by researchers from many different countries. (Fancher, 1985, pp. 47-48)

Wissler's Dissertation
 It is rare for a graduate student to single-handedly crush the morale of the professional establishment, but that is exactly what Clark Wissler did. At the time of his doctoral dissertation, Wissler was one of Cattell's graduate students at Columbia University. He obtained the psychophysical test scores from several hundred Columbia University and Barnard College students who had been Cattell's research subjects. He then used the newly perfected Pearson correlation coefficient to examine the relationship between each student's score on each of the tests and their undergraduate academic grades. The surprising result was that there was virtually no correlation between scores on Cattell's tests and academic achievement. Perhaps equally surprising was the fact that scores on Cattell's tests did not even appear to correlate with each other. Since the tests didn't agree among themselves, and they didn't correlate with independent measures of mental ability (undergraduate academic grades), it did not seem possible that they could be valid measures of intelligence. (Fancher, 1985, pp. 48-49; Sternberg, 1990, pp. 72-73)


Impact of Wissler's Dissertation
At the time of Wissler's dissertation, psychophysical measurement was the primary research paradigm for intelligence testing. The eugenics movement was gaining momentum, and the majority of the psychological community was thoroughly invested in the findings of Galton and Cattell. After Wissler's results became known, psychology gradually lost interest in psychophysical testing. Although Cattell remained a psychologist, he also became disenchanted with psychophysical testing, and spent the remainder of his career in relative obscurity. (Fancher, 1985, p. 49) Galton continued to be interested in eugenics and hereditary theory until he died in 1911. (Fancher, 1985, p. 82) Many critics have pointed out that Wissler's research was flawed. When Charles Spearman first heard of the dissertation, he was disheartened. However, he soon realized that there was a degree of unreliability in Cattell's sensory discrimination scores. Therefore, Wissler's correlation coefficients would have underestimated the degree of the relationships between variables. Spearman believed that applying a correction formula to the original data would allow the true degree of relationships to be assessed. (Fancher, 1985, pp. 88-89)  Other critics have argued that even if Wissler's correlations were correct, the inferences based on his results were not. Wissler's research subjects were members of a very homogeneous group, i.e., undergraduate students from prestigious universities. Since these students were relatively similar to one another, correlations would be expected to be lower than those obtained from a more heterogeneous group. (Sternberg, 1990, pp. 73-74)

Later Career of Wissler
Almost immediately after his iconoclastic upheaval (and perhaps in part because of it) Wissler abruptly changed fields. (Fancher, 1985, pp. 48-49) Although he always maintained an avuncular interest in psychology, most of what is written about him today refers to his long and prolific career in anthropology. In 1902 he became an assistant in Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York--a position that eventually spawned his appointment as Curator. During this period he became enthusiastically involved in anthropological fieldwork, focusing his energies on the culture and customs of Native Americans. He lectured at Columbia and Yale, wrote dozens of books and articles, and contributed a sizable amount of ethnographic data to the field of anthropology. (Freed & Freed, 1993) Although Clark Wissler left the field of psychology behind a century ago, psychology has not left him behind. His doctoral dissertation permanently changed the dominant research paradigm for intelligence testing. (Fancher, 1985, p. 49) Although advances in neurophysiology may eventually impact intelligence testing, anthropometric testing (as it was conceived by Galton, Cattell, Wissler and others) is rarely used today.


References

Fancher, R.E. (1985). The intelligence men: Makers of the IQ controversy. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Freed, S.A., & Freed, R.S. (1992). Clark Wissler. In P.H. Raven (Ed.), National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Biographical Memoirs, 61, 468-497. Washington D.C.: National Academy Press.

Sternberg, R.J. (1990). Metaphors of mind: Conceptions of the nature of intelligence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

www.intelltheory.com
 

Bonus post - Dean Keith Simonton

Dean Keith Simonton (January 27, 1948-present )is an American Psychologist, influenced by Cox, Darwin and Galton. Studied the connection between genius and creativity, also very extensive research about leadership, high achievers,eminence, innovation, outstanding results, excellence and geniality.



Influenced by: Cox, Darwin, Galton
Time Period: Current Efforts

Education:
Occidental College (B.A. in Psychology, Magna Cum Laude, 1970)
Harvard University (M.A. in Social Psychology, 1973; Ph.D. in Social Psychology, 1975)

Career:
Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas (1974-1976)
Assistant Professor, University of California, Davis (1976-1980)
Associate Professor, University of California, Davis (1980-1985)
Visiting Research Psychologist, Institute for Personality Assessment and Research, UC Berkeley (1985)
Professor, University of California, Davis (1985-present; became Distinguished Professor in 2004)
Numerous awards, including the Robert S. Daniel Award for Four Year College/University Teaching (American Psychological Association, 2006); the Theoretical Innovation Prize (APA, 2004), the William James Book Award (APA, 2000), George A. Miller Outstanding Article Award (APA, 1997), Rudolf Arnheim Award for Outstanding Achievement in Psychology and the Arts (APA, 1996), Sir Francis Galton Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Study of Creativity (International Association of Empirical Aesthetics, 1996), Award for Excellence in Research (Mensa Education and Research Foundation, 1986, 2009)

Definition of Intelligence:
"My view of intelligence is basically a Darwinian one. It's based on sort of the old Functionalist notion that goes way back to Francis Galton, that says that there are a certain set of cognitive capacities that enable an individual to adapt and thrive in any given environment they find themselves in, and those cognitive capacities include things like memory and retrieval, and problem solving and so forth. There's a cluster of cognitive abilities that lead to successful adaptation to a wide range of environments (Simonton, personal communication, July 5, 2003)."

Major Contributions:
Empirically examines the nature and origins of genius as it manifests in creativity, leadership, talent and aesthetics
Extended and advanced the historiometric approach of measuring the intelligence of historical persons
Author of more than 300 books, book chapters and research articles

Ideas and Interests:
Dean Keith Simonton's substantial contributions to the study of human intelligence arose in part from his youthful enthusiasm for the classical arts, sciences, and humanities. At an early age he developed a keen interest in the nature and origins of genius in these domains, and his prolific research career is a testament to his personal passion for all that is culturally significant, great and beautiful, as well as his insatiable curiosity about the eminent individuals involved in the creation of such things. Dr. Simonton's more than 300 books, book chapters and research articles explore genius, creativity, leadership, talent and aesthetics; specifically, the "cognitive, personal, developmental, social, and cultural factors behind eminence, giftedness, and talent in science, art, politics and war" as well as the psychology of science and distinguished scientists (retrieved from http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/simonton/). Having firmly established himself in the tradition of Sir Francis Galton, Dr. Simonton's preferred research approach is historiometric; that is, he uses the tools of history, biography and psychometrics to extrapolate general principles about human behavior from the lives and works of the eminent individuals he studies (Simonton, 1984; 1999b) . Some of his findings related to intelligence include: Although at least a moderately high IQ is important for the achievement of eminence, statistical analyses demonstrate that intelligence accounts for only about 4-5 percent of the variance in measures of cultural eminence. Developmental, motivational and personality factors seem to matter a great deal more. Thus, very intelligent people do not necessarily accomplish great things (Simonton, 1999a; Simonton, personal communication, July 5, 2003).
The relationship between IQ and persuasive influence over other members of one's group may drop off beyond an IQ of approximately 120. Individuals who are very smart may be less comprehensible to other group members, and this might have a negative impact on their ability to influence those around them. Even if the exceptionally bright individuals are able to target their use of language to the needs of their audience, the complexity of their ideas may be less accessible to listeners with IQs more than one standard deviation lower than their own (Simonton, 1985; 1999a). As evidence, Simonton's historiometric research demonstrates that more intelligent individuals have had a harder time getting elected to the American presidency (Simonton, 1999a) Intelligence level impacts everyday creativity, such as that involved in problem-solving, but individuals with very high intelligence do not necessarily demonstrate the type of creativity that will make an impression on society at large (Simonton, 1999a).

Selected Publications

Simonton, D. K. (1984). Genius, creativity and leadership: Historiometric inquiries. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Simonton, D. K. (1988). Scientific genius: A psychology of science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Simonton, D. K. (1990). Psychology, science and history: A introduction to historiometry. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Simonton, D. K. (1997). Genius and creativity: Selected papers: Greenwich, CT: Ablex

Simonton, D. K. (1999). Origins of genius: Darwinian perspectives on creativity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Simonton, D.K. (2003). It's absolutely impossible? A longitudinal study of one psychologist's response to conventional naysayers. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed .). Psychologists defying the crowd: Stories of those who battled the establishment and won (pp. 239-254). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

Simonton, D. K. (2004). Creativity in science: Chance, logic, genius, and zeitgeist. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Simonton, D. K. (2006). Presidential IQ, Openness, Intellectual Brilliance, and leadership: Estimates and correlations for 42 US chief executives. Political Psychology, 27, 511-639.

Simonton, D. K. (2008). Childhood giftedness and adulthood genius: A historiometric analysis of 291 eminent African Americans. Gifted Child Quarterly, 52, 243-255.

Simonton, D. K. (2009). Genius 101. New York: Springer.

Simonton, D. K., & Song, A. V. (2009). Eminence, IQ, physical and mental health, and achievement domain: Cox’s 282 geniuses revisited. Psychological Science, 20, 429-434.

References

Simonton, D. K. (1984). Genius, creativity and leadership: Historiometric inquiries. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Simonton, D. K. (1985). Intelligence and personal influence in groups: Four nonlinear models. Psychological Review, 92, 532-547.

Simonton, D. K. (1999a). Origins of genius: Darwinian perspectives on creativity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Simonton, D. K. (1999b). Significant samples: The psychological study of eminent individuals. Psychological Methods, 4(4), 425-451.

Simonton, D. K. (2009). The "other IQ": Historiometric assessments of intelligence and related constructs. Review of General Psychology, 13, 315- 326.

www.intelltheory.com

Francis Galton

As we go back to the beginnings, in that place in the past that will allow us to understand the future, i was telling you about Catharine Cox, and how she was heavily influenced by Galton teachings. So for today, surprise, Mr. Francis Galton itself, (1822-1911) he was a British psychologist, and probably one of the first great polymath to know after Leonardo Da Vinci and this is his story:


Influenced by: Darwin, LaPlace, Gauss
Students: J. M. Cattell, Pearson
Influenced: Spearman, Terman, Cox

Time Period: Modern Foundations

Education
Trinity College, Cambridge - Degree in Mathematics

Career
-African Explorer and elected Fellow in the Royal Geographic Society
-Creator of the first weather maps and establisher of the meteorological theory of anticyclones
-Coined term "eugenics" and phrase "nature versus nurture"
-Developed statistical concepts of correlation and regression to the mean
-Discovered that fingerprints were an index of personal identity and persuaded Scotland Yard to adopt a fingerprinting system
-First to utilize the survey as a method for data collection
-Produced over 340 papers and books throughout his lifetime
-Knighted in 1909

Publications
Galton, F. (1869/1892/1962). Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences. Macmillan/Fontana, London.
Galton, F. (1883/1907/1973). Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development. AMS Press, New York.

Major Contributions

Galton was a man of many facets. Having first started out in pursuit of a medical career, he took a leave of absence from his studies to travel abroad - a pastime that he would find himself coming back to throughout his life. Upon his return to studies, Galton took up mathematics at Trinity College in Cambridge. While there, he suffered a break down in anticipation of the honors exams which resulted in his graduating without a distinguished degree.

He returned to his travels and established himself as an enthusiastic explorer who would later be described as having had a "love affair with Africa" (Allen, 2002). During his travels he carried his passion for statistics and measurement with him. His expeditions throughout the Middle East and Africa were marked with his constant studying of the environment as he recorded various aspects of the land, people, weather and events that surrounded him. These travels would prove to influence his multifaceted career as they "helped to establish Galton's credibility as a serious Victorian man of science" (Bynum, 2002). His many contributions to the fields of geography, meteorology, anthropometry, biology, statistics, criminology, heredity, psychology and education would all have threads of his travels embedded throughout.

In 1865 he began to study heredity, partly brought on by reading his cousin, Charles Darwin's publication Origin of Species (Clayes, 2001). Galton soon discovered that his true passion was studying the variations in human ability. In particularly, he was convinced that success was due to superior qualities passed down to offspring through heredity. His book, Hereditary Genius (1869), outlined this hypothesis and utilized supporting data he had collected by analyzing the obituaries of the Times newspaper, where he traced the lineage of eminent men in Europe. His quest for data and accountability would lead to a series of studies and books on the heredity of mental faculties specifying that "human mental abilities and personality traits, no less than the plant and animal traits described by Darwin, were essentially inherited" (Seligman, 2002).

Ultimately, these findings sparked the formative years of the eugenics movement, which called for methods of improving the biological make-up of the human species through selective parenthood. Galton would even go so far as to advocate human breeding restrictions to curtail the breeding of 'feeble-minded' (Irvine, 1986; Clayes, 2001). "It seemed obvious and even unarguable to Galton that, from a eugenic viewpoint, superior mental and behavioral capacities, as well as physical health, are advantageous, not only to an individual but for the well-being of society as a whole" (Jensen, 2002). Within this mindset led the inevitable value-laden categorization or ranking of populations based on measurable traits and natural ability (Simonton, 2003). It followed that Galton estimated from his field observations in Africa that the African people were 'two grades' below Anglo-Saxons' position in the normal frequency distribution of general mental ability, which gave claim to the scientific validation of Africans' mental inferiority compared with Anglo-Saxons (Jensen, 2002); findings that continued to spark controversy in academia today.

In 1925, Lewis Terman promulgated Galton's theories of natural ability by defining mental ability and genius in terms of scores on the Stanford-Binet intelligence test. In doing so, "Galton's belief in the adaptive value of natural ability became thereby translated into widespread conviction that general intelligence provides the single most critical psychological factor underlying success in life" (Simonton, 2003). However, even Galton took into account energy and persistence as well as intellect when factoring the ingredients of success (Galton, 1869 as cited in Simonton, 2003).

Although Galton is most highly recognized for his heredity studies and his proliferation of eugenics ideology, he also made many other highly notable contributions to the fields of biology, psychology, statistics, and education. Galton is recognized as the "father of behavioral genetics" for his ground laying twin studies where he looked at the differences between monozygotic and dizygotic twins. His observations and testing approaches led to findings examining the nature versus nurture elements of mental abilities. While he may have led claim to this still widely studied dichotomy, his beliefs weighed heavily on the genetic predisposition to abilities in general.

Galton is also hailed as having made lasting contributions to the fields of psychology and statistics. In his passionate drive to quantify the passing down of characteristics, qualities, traits, and abilities from generation to generation, he formulated the statistical notion of correlation which led to his understanding of how generations were related to each other (Bynum, 2002). He also established that "numerous heritable traits, including height and intelligence, exhibited regression to the mean - meaning that extreme inherited results tended to move toward average results in the next generation" (Seligman, 2002).

Galton was the first to demonstrate that the Laplace-Gauss distribution or the "normal distribution" could be applied to human psychological attributes, including intelligence (Simonton, 2003). From this finding, he coined the use of percentile scores for measuring relative standing on various measurements in relation to the normal distribution (Jensen, 2002). He even established the world's first mental testing center, in which a person could take a battery of tests and receive a written report of the results (Irvine, 1986).

Aside from his formidable contributions to several prominent fields, Galton's most impressive legacy, arguably, is his continued influence on these very fields nearly a century after his death. In fact, Galton's publications can be found cited in numerous scientific articles today (Simonton, 2003).

* For more information on Sir Francis Galton and access to his publications available on-line, reference www.galton.org

References:

Allen, G. (2002). The measure of a Victorian polymath: Pulling together the strands of Francis Galton's legacy to modern biology. Nature, 145(3), 19-20.

Bynum, W. F. (2002). The childless father of eugenics. Science, 296, 472.

Clayes, G. (2001). Introducing Francis Galton, 'Kantsaywhere' and 'The Donoghues of Dunno Weir.' Utopian Studies, 12(2), 188-190.

Forest, D. (1995). Francis Galton (1822-1911). In R. Fuller (Ed.), Seven pioneers of psychology: Behavior and mind (pp.1-19). Routledge: London and New York.

Irvine, P. (1986). Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911). Journal of Special Education, 20(1).

Jensen, A. (2002). Galton's legacy to research on intelligence. Journal of Biosocial Science, 34, 145-172.

Seligman, D. (2002). Good breeding. National Review, 54(1), 53-54.

Simonton, D. K. (2003). Francis Galton's Hereditary Genius: Its place in the history and psychology of Science. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), The anatomy of impact: What makes the great works of psychology great (pp. 3-18). American Psychological Association: Washington, D.C.

http://www.intelltheory.com/

Catharine Cox Miles

Catharine Cox Miles (May 20, 1890-October 11, 1984) was one of the most prominent american psychologists.

Student of: Lewis Terman
Influenced by: Francis Galton,  James McKeen Cattell  
Influenced: Dean Keith Simonton
Time Period: The Great Schools' Influence

Education:
Stanford University (B.A., 1911)
Stanford University (M.A. in German language and literature, 1913)
Stanford University (Ph.D., 1925) - Under Lewis Terman

Career:
Spent a year at the University of Jena and the University of Berlin (1914)
Instructor to full professor, the College of the Pacific (1915-1920)
Chief psychologist for the Central Mental Hygiene Clinic in Cincinnati General Hospital, the Children’s Hospital, and the Diagnostic Center of the Veterans Bureau (1925-1927)
Research Associate to Terman on the project leading to the construction of the Terman-Miles M-F Test at Stanford University (1927-1932)
Clinical Professor of Psychology, Yale University (1932-1953)

Major Contributions:
Sole-authored Volume 2 of Terman's Genetic Studies of Genius
Calculated IQ estimates for 301 historic geniuses
Estimated the correlation between IQ and eminence
Assessed 67 character traits for 100 historic geniuses
Determined the early mental and physical health of 282 geniuses

Ideas and Contributions:

Catharine Cox entered the Stanford’s graduate program in psychology about the time that her mentor Terman was beginning his ambitious longitudinal study of intellectually gifted children. Because this project did not afford her with the suitable opportunity for a dissertation subject, she proposed a complementary investigation. Whereas Terman’s inquiry was psychometric and prospective, Cox would conduct a study that was historiometric and retrospective. In particular, she would estimate IQ scores for highly eminent but deceased creators and leaders and then show that these scores correlated with eminence measures that J. M. Cattell (1903) had previously provided. Just one year after publishing the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale Terman (1917) had already shown how an IQ score might be computed for a historical figure, in his case assigning an IQ of near 200 to Francis Galton.

Cox’s approach was extremely conscientious and methodical. Using more than 3,000 biographical sources she carefully compiled developmental histories for 301 geniuses, and then she and a team of independent raters – including Terman and Florence Goodenough – used these data to derive the IQ estimates. In addition, she showed that estimated IQ correlated with achieved eminence. Furthermore, for a subset of 100 geniuses she computed ratings on 67 character traits. On the basis of these scores she was able to conclude that motivation, determination, and persistence were also critical to high achievement. The resulting doctoral thesis was sufficiently impressive that Terman had it published as Volume 2 in his Genetic Studies of Genius. Not only was this the only volume that did not involve the longitudinal study of his “Termites,” but it is also the only volume that did not include Terman as an author or co-author. At 842 printed pages, it can easily be considered the most ambitious historiometric investigation ever published. Moreover, many of her key findings have been replicated in subsequent research.  

Unfortunately, Cox was soon diverted from this work by:

(a) her collaboration with Terman on a masculinity-femininity measure 

(b) her marriage to Walter Miles (a recent widower with two teenagers). 

She also started publishing under her married name Miles rather than Cox. However, a decade later she returned to the historic geniuses that were the subject of her thesis. Miles and Wolfe (1936) specifically scored the geniuses on early mental and physical health. Their aim was to show that intellectual giftedness was also positively associated with both mental and physical well-being.

Publications

Cox. C. (1926). The early mental traits of three hundred geniuses. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Miles, C. C. (1928). A human clock. Journal of General Psychology, 1, 602-603.

Miles, C. C., & Terman, L. M. (1929). Sex difference in the association of ideas. American Journal of Psychology, 41, 165-206.

Miles, C. C. (1931). The Otis S-A as a fifteen-minute intelligence test. Personnel Journal, 10, 246-249.

Miles, C.C. (1931). Individual mental hygiene. In B. S. Dyment (Ed.). Health and Its Maintenance (pp.159-192). Stanford Univ.: Stanford Univ. Press.

Miles, C. C., & Miles, W. R. (1932). The correlation of intelligence scores and chronological age from early to late maturity.  American Journal of Psychology, 44, 44-78.

Miles, C. C (1934). Influence of speed and age on intelligence scores of adults. Journal of General Psychology, 10, 208-210.

Miles, C. C. & Wolfe, L. S. (1936). Childhood physical and mental health records of historical geniuses. Psychological Monograph, 47, 390-400.

Miles, C. C. (1938). Intelligence and social adjustment. Mental Hygiene, 22, 544-566.

Terman, L. M., & Miles, C. C. (1936).  Sex and Personality. New Haven, CT, US: Yale University Press.

References:

Rogers, K. B. (1999). The lifelong productivity of the female researchers in Terman’s Genetic Studies of Genius longitudinal study. Gifted Child Quarterly, 43, 150-169.

Sears, R. R. (1986). Catharine Cox Miles; 1890-1984. American Journal of Psychology, 99, 431-433.

Simonton, D. K. (2009). The "other IQ": Historiometric assessments of intelligence and related constructs. Review of General Psychology, 13, 315- 326.

Simonton, D. K., & Song, A. V. (2009). Eminence, IQ, physical and mental health, and achievement domain: Cox’s 282 geniuses revisited. Psychological Science, 20, 429-434.

Written by Prof. Dean Keith Simonton, University of California-Davis, with contributions by Meihua Qian, Indiana University.

www.Intelltheory.com

Click here for Catharine Cox Miles papers