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

Lewis Madison Terman

As i promised, Terman life and studies. 

His books:

The Measurement of Intelligence. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1916.

The Stanford Revision and Extension of the Binet-Simon Scale for Measuring Intelligence. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1917.

The Intelligence of School Children. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1919.

Genetic Studies of Genius, Vol. 1, Mental and Physical Traits of a Thousand Gifted Children. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1925. The first in a series of monographs on the study of the gifted.

“Trails to Psychology.” In A History of Psychology in Autobiography, edited by Carl A. Murchison. Worcester, MA: Clark University Press, 1932. Terman’s autobiographical chapter.

With Catharine Cox Miles. Sex and Personality: Studies in Masculinity and Femininity. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1936.

With Maud A. Merrill. Measuring Intelligence. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1937.

Psychological Factors in Marital Happiness. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1938.

With Melita H. Oden. Genetic Studies of Genius, Vol. 4: The Gifted Child Grows Up: Twenty-Five Years of Follow-Up of a Superior Group. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1947.

With Melita H. Oden. Genetic Studies of Genius, Vol. 5: The Gifted Child at Mid-Life: Thirty-Five Years of Follow-Up of the Superior Child. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1959.

With Robert R. Sears, Lee J. Cronbach, and Pauline S. Sears. “Terman Life-Cycle Study of Children with High Ability, 1922–1991.” Available from www.ciser.cornell.edu. Final report of the study of the gifted.

________________________________________________________________________________

Terman, Lewis Madison (b. Franklin, Indiana, 15 January 1877;d. Palo Alto, California, 21 December 1956), studied psychology, education, mental testing, human sexuality.

Terman was one of the leaders in the development of psychological tests that measured individual and group differences. He played a major role in establishing the use of intelligence and achievement tests in American schools. His most noteworthy research dealt with the intellectually gifted.

Early Life and Professional Training. 

Lewis M. Terman was born and raised on a farm in central Indiana, the twelfth of James William and Martha’s fourteen children. He went to a one-room school, completing the eighth grade when he was twelve. He was determined to continue his education, but with no high school near his home, the only avenue open for higher education was teacher training at a normal college. Terman was fifteen before his parents were able to pay for his education; he then enrolled at Central Normal College in Danville, Indiana. At seventeen, with basic teacher preparation achieved, he obtained his first teaching position and four years later he became a high school principal. Over a six-year period, he earned three undergraduate degrees at the normal college. During his teacher training, he met fellow student Anna Belle Minton (no relation to this author), whom he married in 1899.

With aspirations beyond school teaching, Terman entered Indiana University in 1901, earning a master’s degree in psychology in two years. With the encouragement of his Indiana mentor Ernest H. Lindley, he proceeded to doctoral studies in 1903 at Clark University under the direction of G. Stanley Hall, one of the early leaders in American psychology. For his dissertation, Terman conducted an experimental study of mental tests, comparing the performance of a “bright” and a “dull” group of ten- to thirteen-year-old boys. Because Hall did not approve of mental tests, Edmund C. Sanford supervised his dissertation, and Terman obtained his PhD in 1905. Hall, however, influenced Terman’s thinking about the nature of intelligence. Consistent with Hall’s evolutionary perspective on individual and group differences, Terman assumed that mental tests measured native ability. While studying at Clark, Terman became ill with tuberculosis. Although he made a successful recovery, he decided to seek employment in a warm climate. With his graduate work completed, he accepted a position as a high school principal in San Bernardino, California. A year later, he was able to attain more intellectually challenging work, teaching child study and pedagogy at the Los Angeles State Normal School. In 1910 he received an appointment at prestigious Stanford University’s education department. He spent the rest of his career at Stanford, becoming head of the psychology department in 1922, a position he held until his retirement in 1942.

Mental Test Pioneer. 

The move to Stanford in 1910 coincided with Terman’s full recovery from tuberculosis, and he was thus able to take on a more active academic workload. He resumed his earlier research in mental testing and began to work with Alfred Binet’s 1908 scale, the first widely accepted measure of intelligence. Henry H. Goddard had published translations from the French of Binet’s original 1905 scale and the subsequent 1908 revision. Terman’s first tentative revision of the Binet appeared in 1912 and with the assistance of a team of graduate students, the final version—the “Stanford-Binet”—was published in 1916. An innovative feature of the Stanford-Binet was the inclusion of a total score in the form of an “Intelligence Quotient” or IQ—that is, the ratio between mental and chronological ages—a concept first introduced by the German psychologist William Stern, but not previously used in mental tests. The mental age represented test performance based on age norms. While there were several competitive versions, Terman’s revision of the Binet utilized the largest standardized sample and by the 1920s became the most widely used individually administered intelligence test. With the publication of the Stanford-Binet, Terman became a highly visible figure in the American mental testing movement. Reflecting his reputation, he was invited in 1917 to serve on a committee that had been assembled at the Vineland Training School for the mentally retarded in New Jersey to develop mental tests for the U.S. Army. The United States had entered World War I and Robert M. Yerkes, the president of the American Psychological Association, organized the psychologists’ contribution to the war effort. Yerkes chaired the testing committee, and the membership was made up of the leading psychologists in the mental testing field. Terman brought with him a new group-administered version of the Stanford-Binet that had been developed by his graduate student, Arthur S. Otis. The Otis test served as the basis for the construction of the army group tests (the Alpha and Beta examinations). While serious questions have been raised about the significance of the psychologists’ contribution to the war, it is clear that the war provided an enormous boost for the mental testing movement. Approximately 1.75 million men were tested, and on this basis, recommendations were made with regard to job placements or immediate discharge from the army. The major weakness of the army testing program was the psychologists’ failure to incorporate the impact of cultural differences on tested intelligence. Thus, the lower IQ scores earned by foreign-born and poor native-born soldiers were interpreted as reflecting low levels of native ability rather than other factors such as limited acculturation and schooling. Terman, like the other members of the army testing committee, adhered to the assumption that mental abilities were primarily a product of heredity.

Mass Testing in the Schools. 

After the war, Terman seized upon the contribution of the army tests to military efficiency and predicted that they would soon be universally used in the schools. To achieve this goal, Terman and the other psychologists who constructed the army tests adapted them for school-age children. The resulting “National Intelligence Tests” for grades three to eight were published in 1920. Terman became an advocate for the use of intelligence tests as a means of reorganizing schools so that pupils could be classified into homogeneous ability groups. He worked closely with the National Education Association, which in 1918 had opted for a differentiated curriculum—a policy aimed at bringing order out of the chaos of a burgeoning population of schoolchildren, swelled by large numbers of recent immigrants. Thus, during the 1920s, intelligence testing and the tracking system of ability grouping became common practice in schools and Terman played a central role in fostering these programs. Terman was also a leader in the development of standardized group achievement tests, which measured school learning. With a team of Stanford colleagues, he produced the first achievement test battery—the Stanford Achievement Test. Terman viewed the widespread adoption of tests in the schools as a reflection of how testing could benefit American society. It was to be a major means of achieving his vision of a meritocracy within the American democratic ideal—a social order based on ranked levels of native ability. As a measure of native ability, intelligence tests could identify children who were cognitively gifted and therefore had the potential to emerge as leaders of society. Once these children were identified, it was the responsibility of the schools to devote the necessary time and effort to cultivate their intellectual talent.

The Study of the Gifted. 

To fulfill his meritocratic goals and supported by a research grant from the Commonwealth Fund of New York, Terman launched a longitudinal study of gifted children in 1921. This was an innovative project because it was the first investigation to use a large sample of subjects who were followed over the course of several years. The criterion for categorizing gifted children was an IQ of at least 135, which constituted the highest 1 percent of the distribution of IQ scores. With a pool of more than a quarter-million school-children in California public schools, Terman and his research team selected elementary and secondary schools in urban areas. To further the efficiency of the selection process, the researchers relied on teacher nominations of the “brightest” pupils in their classes. The resulting sample of approximately 1,500 gifted children thus turned out to be largely white and middle-class. Terman, however, did not appear to be sensitive to the bias inherent in teacher nominations, because he attributed race and class differences primarily to heredity. In an effort to dispel the popular notion that gifted children were underdeveloped in nonintellectual areas, Terman included medical and physical assessments, as well as measures of personality, character, and interests. The gifted sample was compared with a control group of California schoolchildren of comparable age. In the first of a series of monographs on the gifted study, the major finding was that gifted children excelled in measures of academic achievement when matched with age for control children. The composite portrait of the gifted children also revealed that they were emotionally as well as intellectually mature. Based on these initial findings, Terman strongly advocated a differentiated school curriculum that would place gifted children in special classrooms where they could accelerate academically according to their ability rather than their age. With additional research funding, Terman followed up his gifted sample for a period of thirty-five years. At midlife, as reported in a 1959 monograph, the intellectual level of the gifted group continued to be within the upper 1 percent of the general population, and their occupational achievement was well above the average of college graduates. Furthermore, as earlier reports had demonstrated, they showed few signs of such serious problems as insanity, delinquency, or alcoholism. The midlife report also included some striking gender differences. Whereas the men as a group had attained a high level of career success, few women had comparable levels of career achievement. As Terman noted, career opportunities for women were restricted by gender-role conformity and job discrimination. Terman’s involvement with the gifted study entailed more than data collection and research reports. Particularly after he retired from teaching in 1942, he devoted himself to the interests of gifted children by promoting special education for the gifted and, through contacts with journalists, disseminated the results of the gifted study in newspapers and magazines. He also popularized his work by making guest appearances on the radio show “The Quiz Kids.” His appearance in 1947 coincided with the publication of the twenty-five year follow-up. By utilizing the public media, Terman aimed to eradicate the public’s negative stereotype of gifted children as maladjusted. In his work with the gifted, Terman experienced particular satisfaction with the personal contacts he was able to establish with some of the research participants. He maintained correspondence with many of them over the years and in some instances received them as guests in his own home. Thus, for a number of the gifted children who “grew up” and came to be labeled as “Termites,” he was a benevolent father figure and psychological counselor. By the early 1950s, with plans under way for the continuation of the gifted follow-up, Terman appointed Stanford colleague Robert R. Sears (who also happened to be a member of the gifted sample) to succeed him as research director. The gifted sample was thus followed up through late adulthood.

The Testing Debates. 

As one of the leading advocates of intelligence testing, Terman was often challenged by critics of the testing movement. These challenges began in the early 1920s when the results of the army testing became widely known. The influential journalist Walter Lipp-mann wrote a series of highly critical articles about the army tests in the New Republic. Lippmann singled out Terman because of his development of the Stanford-Binet and asserted that there was no foundation to support the assumption made by Terman and the other army psychologists that the tests measured innate ability. It should be noted that Lippmann did not simply rely on persuasive argument in challenging Terman: he specifically drew attention to what he believed were faulty interpretations of the data. Terman was enraged by Lippmann’s attack. Despite the technical sophistication of many of the criticisms, Terman in his published reply in the New Republic recommended that Lippmann, as a layman, should stay out of issues he was not informed about. In fact, Terman was quite evasive in responding to the points Lippmann raised, such as an environmental interpretation of the correlation between tested intelligence and social class.

During the 1920s Terman also engaged in a series of published debates about testing with psychologist William C. Bagley, another critic of the hereditarian view of intelligence. In an effort to resolve matters, Terman took on the task of chairing a committee that organized an edited book on the nature-nurture controversy. In this monograph, published in 1928, leading advocates on each side of the issue marshaled evidence and arguments, but as in previous exchanges, nothing was resolved.

In 1940 Terman was once again drawn into the nature-nurture debate, this time challenged by a team of environmental advocates at the University of Iowa led by George D. Stoddard. In a series of studies, the Iowa researchers reported that mental growth, as reflected by increases in IQ scores, was facilitated by school experience at both the preschool and elementary school levels. Their major conclusion was that IQ scores could be raised if children were exposed to environmentally stimulating conditions. Stoddard therefore argued that because of environmental influences intelligence tests should not be used to make long-term predictions; in essence, attacking the widespread use of intelligence tests in the schools as a means of sorting students into ability tracks. Terman viewed Stoddard’s position as a threat to his career objective of establishing a meritocracy based on IQ differences. The 1940 debate, as in the past, led to an impasse. Intelligence testing in the schools continued to be common practice. It would not be until the 1960s, as a consequence of the civil rights movement, that mass testing was seriously challenged. Terman did modify his position to some extent. In the 1930s, mindful of the racial propaganda of Nazi Germany, he resigned his long-standing membership in the American Eugenics Society. After World War II, although he still held to his democratic ideal of a meritocracy, he no longer supported a hereditarian explanation of race differences, and he acknowledged that among the gifted, home environment was related to degree of success.

Studies of Gender and Marital Adjustment. 

Terman’s interest in the study of individual and group differences extended beyond mental abilities and achievement. As a result of his research on the gifted, he became interested in measuring nonintellectual differences. By examining emotional and motivational characteristics, he sought to demonstrate that the gifted had well-adjusted and well-rounded personalities. To gain insight into this facet of human differences, he proceeded to measure gender identity, which was viewed as a composite of emotional and motivational traits that differentiated the sexes. By the 1910s psychologists had begun to study sex differences in motor, sensory, and intellectual abilities, but after a decade of inconclusive research results there was a shift of interest towards exploring broader concepts, such as the notions of masculinity and femininity. Terman tapped into this trend by identifying masculine and feminine interests from a questionnaire filled out by the gifted sample regarding their preferences for various play activities, games, and amusements. The initial survey conducted in 1922 revealed that the gifted and control children did not differ in gender orientation as derived from their activity preferences. In 1925 Terman was awarded a National Research Council grant to study sex differences and with his former student, Catharine Cox Miles, constructed a masculinity-femininity (M-F) test, the first measure of its kind. The final version, published in 1936 and labeled the “Attitude-Interest Analysis Test” to disguise its purpose, was based on normative samples of male and female groups ranging in age from early adolescence to late adulthood, although the core of the sample was high school juniors and college sophomores. The test consisted of approximately 450 multiple choice items that assessed preferences for a variety of activities and interests, as well as responses to emotionally-laden situations that might arouse feelings of anger or fear. In an effort to validate the M-F test, Terman had the opportunity to collect test protocols from a group of male homosexuals in San Francisco who were motivated to volunteer for a team of scientists interested in studying them. As he expected, the results revealed that male homosexuals had high feminine scores. He thus concluded that marked deviations from gender-appropriate behaviors and norms were psychologically unhealthy because such deviation had the potential to lead to homosexuality. Even if this “maladjustment” did not develop, other problems could arise. Referring to those individuals with cross-gender identities in their 1936 monograph, “Sex and Personality: Studies in Masculinity and Femininity,” Terman and Miles opined, “One would like to know whether fewer of them marry, and whether a larger proportion of these marriages are unhappy” (p. 46). Underscoring this point, they commented that “aggressive and independent” females could very well be at a disadvantage in the “marriage market” (p. 452). They also expressed the concern that too much competition between the sexes would not be socially desirable. In essence, the authors supported the conventional patriarchal relationship between the sexes. (It is not clear the extent to which Catharine Cox Miles concurred with this position, because Terman acknowledged prime responsibility for the conclusions in their book.) Terman’s conclusions on gender identity were based on the standardized norms he generated from his M-F test. The test represented the gender norms of the 1930s, but Terman was insensitive to the cultural and historical limits of his measure. He chose to emphasize the need to raise and train girls and boys so that they would conform to the existing gender norms that bolstered a clear distinction between the sexes. Consistent with his vision of a social order ranked by native ability, Terman professed that sex differences also had to follow a prescribed ranking. Paralleling the need to cultivate ability differences to meet the needs of an increasingly urban and industrialized society, he also stressed the necessity of ensuring compatible sex roles in times of social change. Many social scientists during the interwar era, mindful of the feminist challenge, preached the need for compatibility rather than conflict between the sexes. Terman’s interest in gender identity and sex differences expanded to the study of marital adjustment. His attraction to exploring marriage was part of a growing trend among social scientists in the 1920s and 1930s to study and hence claim expertise on issues affecting families, including childrearing, sexuality, and marriage. In 1934 Terman conducted a large-scale survey of several hundred married and divorced couples in the San Francisco area. His major conclusion was that personality and social background factors were more influential than sexual compatibility in predicting marital happiness. This finding was contrary to previous studies that had argued that sexual compatibility was the key to marital success. Terman noted that this discrepancy was due to the fact that previous studies had neglected to consider psychological factors because they had been carried out by physicians and social workers. For Terman, this indicated the importance of psychologists being involved in the study of marital relations and human sexuality. In his study, Terman stressed that the key to marital adjustment was the extent to which each spouse accepted the other’s needs and feelings and did not push to get his or her own way. To emphasize this argument, he noted that happily married women could be characterized as being cooperative and accepting of their prescribed subordinate roles. Terman’s conventional views of gender carried over from his gender identity study to his marital research.

Terman’s Contributions and Legacy. 

Terman’s seminal contributions to the development of psychological testing and the study of the intellectually gifted ensure his position as one of the pioneers of American psychology. More than any of the other advocates of the testing movement, he was successful in devising a wide variety of methods assessing individual and group differences. His interest in the gifted led him to go far beyond the measurement of ability. As a result, he was in the forefront of developing indices of school achievement, gender identity, interests, marital adjustment, and sexual behavior. Aside from these personal accomplishments, Terman has left us with an unfulfilled legacy. What he wanted to achieve with his psychological tests and identification of the intellectually gifted was a more socially just and democratic society. A considerable part of Terman’s project, however, has had an unintended dehumanizing effect. For racial and ethnic minorities and lower-class individuals, his differential educational system based on IQ scores served as a barrier for personal growth and social advancement. His views on gender and homosexuality worked against the creation of a more pluralistic society. What Terman failed to understand was the intricate way in which scientific knowledge reflects social power. By uncritically accepting the power inequities of the American social order of his day, he produced scientific knowledge and technology that functioned to perpetuate the status quo.

Bibliography:

1. Chapman, Paul Davis. Schools as Sorters: Lewis M. Terman, Applied Psychology, and the Intelligence Testing Movement, 1890–1930. New York: New York University Press, 1988.

2. Fancher, Raymond E. The Intelligence Men: Makers of the IQ Controversy. New York: W. W. Norton, 1985.

3. Gould, Stephen Jay. The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981. Includes a critical analysis of the mental testing movement.

4. Kimmel, Michael. Manhood in America: A Cultural History. New York: Free Press, 1996. Includes a critical analysis of Terman’s study of masculinity-femininity.

5. Minton, Henry L. Lewis M. Terman: Pioneer in Psychological Testing. New York: New York University Press, 1988. Includes a complete bibliography of Terman’s publications.

6. Samelson, Franz. “Putting Psychology on the Map: Ideology and Intelligence Testing.” In Psychology in Social Context, edited by Alan R. Buss. New York: Irvington, 1979.

7. Seagoe, May V. Terman and the Gifted. Los Altos, CA: Kaufmann, 1975.

8. Zenderland, Leila. Measuring Minds: Henry Herbert Goddard and the Origins of American Intelligence Testing. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

9. "Terman, Lewis Madison." Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. 23 Oct. 2015