9/2/2023 0 Comments Who was alfred binet![]() ![]() He was a promoter of heredity and believed that differences in intelligence and personality were largely inherited. He also examined topics such as the psychology of religion, emotions, and perception.įrancis Galton was an English polymath who made major contributions to the fields of psychology, statistics, evolutionary biology, and eugenics. He studied the structure, meaning, and functions of language and was a pioneer in the field of experimental psychology. He is credited with establishing psychology as a science and developing an approach to it that focused on the role of the conscious mind in understanding behavior. Wilhelm Wundt was a German psychologist who founded the first laboratory dedicated to psychology in 1879. As a result, the next generation of intelligence testers tended to use Binet's techniques to advance Galton's ideas.Ĭontinue reading here: Spearman and general intelligence Binet, on the other hand, had gained far fewer followers. During the last years of his life, Galton drummed up considerable support for his eugenics program and the hereditary theory of intelligence. Yet Galton held greater sway in scientific circles. At the time of their deaths, Galton was an old man, long past his active research days, while Binet was still in the prime of his career. It may also have been due, in part, however, to the way the two scientists led their lives. In part, this may have been because Binet himself was always more interested in measuring intelligence than in explaining it within a theoretical framework. The theory behind the test, however, was not as quickly embraced. Clearly, Binet's test survived because it had practical value. After the two men's deaths, a strange thing occurred: Binet's scale was immediately taken up by scientists whose views and goals were otherwise much closer to Galton's. Galton's and Cattell's physiological tests, on the other hand, would have been more applicable to people from many different backgrounds-if only they had worked.īy a twist of fate, both Galton and Binet died in 1911. Of course, this meant that the test was only valid for people who came from a certain background. He also stressed that intelligence was changeable within limits through proper education.īecause Binet saw culture and intelligence as closely related, he had no qualms about including culturally based items on his test. He believed that cultural factors played a large role in shaping an individual's mental abilities. Binet, in contrast, was more interested in the role of nurture. He viewed the upper limits of a person's ability as fixed by genetics rather than culture. Galton mainly focused on the nature side of the equation. Therefore, the very nature of the "intelligence" measured by Binet's test seemed to be rather different from the "intelligence" Galton had had in mind.Īnother major difference between Binet and Galton was their position on the nature-nurture debate. They had not been shown to be the source of high ability, talent, or genius. The mixture of mental abilities measured by his test had only been shown to be something that prevented people from being retarded. By 1908, however, he had developed doubts. Were these children destined to grow up into very bright and talented adults? At first, Binet believed that it might be possible to answer that question by extending his scale upward. When the Binet-Simon Scale was introduced, Binet noted that some children had a mental level that was a year or more ahead of their age in years. And because he looked at less advanced mental processes, basic patterns may have been easier to notice.īinet's own studies of very creative adults, such as dramatists, had found that there was great individuality and complexity in higher-order abilities. Because he worked with children, Binet was able to see the way intelligence developed over time. Binet, in contrast, was interested in testing the intelligence of children at the low end. ![]() Galton and his followers had been mainly interested in studying intelligence in adults at the high end of the ability range. One factor that may have helped Binet succeed was his choice of study population. ![]() Such tests require people to use several mental abilities to perform a broad range of complex tasks. Today, most useful intelligence tests for people of all ages are still based on Binet's model. He succeeded where they had failed at devising a test that was related to intelligent behavior in real life. The failure of Galton's and Cattell's intelligence tests opened the door for Binet to develop a more practical alternative. ![]()
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