A Nation of Morons
Stephen Jay Gould
Robert Yerkes was keen to make psychology a
science. His opportunity came with America’s entry into the First World War.
America was faced with the prospect of working out the capabilities of the
thousands of recruits. Yerkes devised an intelligence test that consisted of
three parts.
1.
The alpha test was to be
taken by literate recruits.
2.
The beta test was to be
taken by illiterate recruits, or those who had failed the alpha test.
3.
The individual interview
was to be taken by those who had failed the beta test.
The tests often relied upon the recruit’s
knowledge of American society.
Procedures were not followed. The black
recruits particularly were disadvantaged by the biased testing procedures. Many
recruits who had failed the alpha test were not given the opportunity to take
the beta test. Results for those who had had the opportunity to be retested
with the beta test, after failing the alpha test, demonstrated that retesting
usually yielded a higher score.
Depending on the results the men were graded
on a scale ranging from A to E (with pluses and minuses). Depending on this
grade the recruits were allocated military work that required an intellectual
skill commensurate with the grade they achieved in Yerkes tests. Recruits
graded C - were to be considered as "low average intelligence-ordinary
private". Men graded D were considered "rarely suited for tasks
requiring special skill, forethought, resourcefulness or sustained
alertness". Men graded D or E were not expected "to read and understand
written directions".
Each test took less than an hour to complete.
Both tests were similar to many modern intelligence tests; as modern tests are
based on Yerkes test.
The alpha test consisted of written questions
such as: "Crisco is
a: patent medicine, disinfectant, toothpaste, food product?" The beta test
was a pictorial test.
A problem with these tests is that they are
culturally biased. A problem with the alpha test is that it really measures how
widely read a candidate is, rather than intellectual ability. The recruits varied
greatly in access to education.
Yerkes asserted that his tests measured
"native intellectual ability". Can you solve "Washington is to
Adams as first is to..."?
Many recent immigrants did poorly; which was
not surprising considering many questions concerned facets of American society
at that time. Many immigrants would not have known what Crisco was, for
example. Even the pictorial beta test involved the recognition of objects that
would have been unfamiliar to people new to America (e.g. a bowling alley).
Yerkes underestimated the number of recruits
who would have had to take the beta test. Long queues were forming for the beta
test. To alleviate the situation, many illiterate recruits were given the alpha
test and naturally failed. Many of these were not given the appropriate beta
test. In some camps it became established practice not to retest black
recruits.
Boring, then Yerkes assistant analysed the
data for 4893 recruits who had taken both tests. He found that the average
mental age on the alpha test was 10.775, whereas it was 12.158 for the beta
test. This suggests that if the recruits, who had failed the alpha test, had
been allowed to take the beta test, they would have ended up with a higher
score.
Many of the black and foreign recruits were anxious
and befuddled at the new experience of having to take an exam. Many did not
know how to hold a pencil. Many did not know as to what use the results of the
exam would be put to. The beta test required the use of a pencil, knowledge of
numbers and the ability to write them.
Many recruits did not finish the exam in the
time allocated. They weren't informed, quite often, about the length of the
exam.
After the First World War, Boring studied
160,000 cases, and converted the scores from the three tests into a unitary
score for each individual.
Three main facts arose from this analysis.
The
average mental age of white American adults was 13 years. A few years before,
the average mental age was considered to be 16. At that time there were many
eugenicists (people who believed that only genetically strong couples should
breed) who blamed the lowering of the mental age on interbreeding between
northern European whites and "inferior races". Blacks, southern and
eastern Europeans were considered inferior.
The
darker skinned southern Europeans and the Slavs of Eastern Europe were found to
the less intelligent than western and northern Europeans. The average Russian
had a mental age of 11.34, the Italian, 11.01, the Pole, 10.74.
The
average mental age of the Negro was 10.41. At one camp it was believed the
darker the skin, the less intelligent the Negro was!
Carl Brigham, then assistant professor of
psychology at Princeton University published this information, in 1923. The
book was called A study of American intelligence.
The data was fiercely defended. For example,
Jews were thought to be unintelligent. This contradicted the fact that there
were many brilliant Jewish people in the society at that time; Einstein being
one of them! Brigham explained this as owing to the greater variability of
intelligence within the Jewish population. The intelligent Jews were the
exception to the rule!
Later Yerkes realised that the apparent
supremacy of the northern Europeans was probably owing to the fact that many
had been long established in American society. Southern Europeans and Slavs
were relatively recent immigrants. He had thought his beta test would not be
biased by length of residence in America.
This view was supported by the finding that
there was a significant positive correlation between length of residence in
America and the test score. However, the eugenicists argued that the most
intelligent people immigrated to America first and the dregs of society made up
most of the recent immigrant population.
This data helped the passage of the
immigration restriction act of 1924. Quotas were set on the number of
immigrants allowed into America. The level was set at two percent of people
from each nation recorded in the 1890 census. The 1890 census was used, as
there were very few southern Europeans, Slavs and Jews, etc. in America at that
time.
Many would be Jewish refugees, trying to flee
from Nazi Germany in the 1930's, were not allowed into America because of these
quotas.
Points to note