Galton 's Theory Of Intelligence Essay

As scientists continue to their research, fundamental questions about intelligence are brought to the surface.

As I reference, the textbook “Understanding Child Development” by Rosalind Charlesworth with his idea on education we can look back on “Jean Piaget “who is known for his work on Cognitive Developmental: Development leads to language, concepts, problem solving, and intellectual needs" (p10). “Piaget’s theory explains how individuals think, understand, and learn. Piaget’s believed that intelligence is the cognitive, or mental, process by which children acquire knowledge.

Howard Gardner developed the Multiple intelligence theory. Gardner believed that the human mind did not have one general intelligence but many that had independent functions. He believed that the previous measure of intelligence did not accurately measure the capability of the human mind. "While formulating this theory, Gardner placed less emphasis on explaining the results of mental tests than on accounting for the range of human abilities that exist across a vast majority of cultures. (www.associatedcontent.com)

Sir Francis Galton (1869, 1883) quantified traits that were assumed to be correlated, and developed the first comprehensive test of intelligence. By the end of the 19th century, the foundation was laid for modern day intelligence testing (Wicket, 1998). In 1905, the French psychologist Alfred Binet published the first modern intelligence test to identify students who needed special help in coping with the school curriculum (Neiser, et al. 1996). Shortly thereafter in 1908 and 1911, Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon published revisions of the Binet intelligence test (Wicket). The mental age concept was adopted to express the results in adequate units. The concept is based on an individual’s performance in comparison to the average performance of individuals in a specific chronological age group (Kaplin, & Saccuzzo).

Testing has been used for centuries in many different ways, not just to test student intelligence levels. According to an article written in Time, the earliest form of a standardized test comes from China where government leaders would be tested on their knowledge of Confucius and poetry. The article continues with the inclusion of testing during the Industrial Revolution. The testing during this period took children who were not in school and measured their knowledge of subjects that students in schools learned. As time went on, more and more advances came to the testing scene. New products included a revised version of the test, called the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test, and professionals developed the test scanner by 1936. These inventions improved the time necessary to receive results from an IQ test. Today, tests, like the

I believe that Gladwell’s purpose for writing “The Trouble with Geniuses Part One and Two” is for individuals to reevaluate the way that society defines and calculates a genius. According to Gladwell, society continues to make the mistake of not understanding what an outlier truly is. I believe Gladwell’s true purpose is to have individuals question the norms that have been set into place by society when it pertains to labeling someone as a genius. Specifically, those who are put into a position of prestige and or great admiration. Gladwell, wants individuals to question the determining factors which allows people to become an outlier.

The role of the environment was minimalized due to Burt’s (1909) theory, intelligence was viewed as a fixed inborn state that could neither be developed or changed (Parrington 1996). Burt’s (1909) influence came from his research through the years 1920 to 1970, when children were segregated by capability. This was noticeable during secondary education

Charles Spearman’s theory (1904) also takes the psychometric approach that there is a general intelligence. Spearman maintains that intelligence is hereditary and an individual is born with their maximum mental ability. This suggests that intelligence cannot be changed or strengthened. The concept of ‘general intelligence’ suggests that an individual has an underlying intelligence, in which their performance in one type of cognitive task is often similar to their performance in another (Boundless 2013). Spearman demonstrated this through the correlations between tests, where individuals who performed well in one test, often performed well in others. This led Spearman to the conclusion that intelligence is defined as a single factor. However, critics refute Spearman’s conclusions, as they argue that one cannot reduce all factors of intelligence to an indefinable “g” (Neisser et al. 1996).

In the early 1900s, IQ test was originally developed by the French psychologist, Alfred Binet.

Francis Galton was know in psychology for his accomplishments in mental tests and his studies of genetics. Galton began by studying facial expressions of people from all ages. In 1884, he established an anthropometric laboratory for measurements of human form. These labs became the first psychometric clinics. People paid a fee to be examined and then was given a results card when they finished. He performed tests involving taste, touch and auditory. He discovered that as people age, they lose the ability to recognize high pitches. He performed these tests on men and women and showed that men have more powers of discrimination. He developed the tool of questionnaires and two forms of association tests. The first test involved the participant

     Scientific research in child development flourished from the early 1900’s. One major stimulus was the introduction (1916) by the American psychologist Lewis Terman of the test known today as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test. This test led to a number of studies about children’s intellectual development. In the 1920’s scientists at more than a dozen leading universities began large-scale observational studies of children and heir families; these included the Berkeley Growth Study at the University of California (started in 1929 and still active today), the Fels Growth Study at Antioch College, and the Harvard Growth Studies. All used the longitudinal method, in which the same children are observed and tested at over a specific time period (The Volume Library 1990: Volume 2).

In 1905 Binet and Simon tested their measurements on another fifty children whom their school teachers considered to be of average intelligence for their ages. This test was to enable Binet to examine the levels of intelligent behaviors between children of the same age. Some of the tests on Binets scale were very simple, including asking a child to follow the direction of movement of a lighted match, and then maybe slightly harder was to repeat back a three digit sequence of numbers or sentences. There were a few harder tests involved which would require a child to make a sentence out of maybe three or four words, or to reproduce a drawing from memory.

Binet argued forcefully against the idea that intelligence is fixed or innate: "We must protest and react against this brutal pessimism (Lewontin, Rose, & Kamen, 1984)." However, those who translated his test into English tended to disagree, arguing that the test measured an innate and immutable, genetically inherited characteristic. After Binet's death in 1911, the Galtonian eugenicists assumed control, shifting the focus firmly toward genetic explanations by insisting that differences in intelligence between social classes and races were due to inherent genetic differences.

Picture England in the Victorian era, living as a wealthy member of the upper class of society. This is how and when Francis Galton lived when he formulated his theories and coined the term nature vs. nurture. The Victorian era was a time of peace and prosperity for England and one of the highest points of England’s power not only domestically but across the entire British Empire. This was a time of industrialization for the country and its widespread influence resulted in great economic growth. This was also one of the largest booms in the population with the country more than doubling its population in 70 years and growing the middle class within the social hierarchy (Hoppen, 1998). The overall mood of the era was one of straight-laced, proper behavior. Literature and the fine arts suffered but scientific research and industrial achievements were praised and encouraged (Hoppen, 1998). This context of the time period is important to consider while looking into Galton’s research. Although some of his theories and work may be inaccurate by what we know today, for his time, his efforts are groundbreaking.

He was most known for his work in intelligence. He believed that aspects of human nature could be measured scientifically. Galton tried to measure intelligence through reaction time tests. For example, the faster someone could register and identify a sound, the more intelligent that person was. Galton believed that intelligence as well as some physical and mental characteristics of humans were inherited and biologically based. Based on studies of prominent individuals and their family trees, he concluded that intellectual ability is inherited the same