Alfred Binet, the Intelligence Test
Alfred Binet was a child psychologist that who created the first Intelligence test. He created a base for more current intelligence tests along with creating standardized testing. The current IQ Test is based off of Alfred Binet first IQ test. Alfred Binet came up with these tests because he was first asked how he could test the differences between those who would fail school and those who would excel. He became interested in Child Psychology when he started to read books written by child psychologist like Charles Darwin and Alexander Bains. He was basically a self-taught psychologist who taught himself by reading books written by past psychologists or about certain parts of psychology.
He started child psychology when he was offered a job by Jean Charcot along with being taught about psychology at the same time since he hadn’t gone to University to learn about psychology. His contribution to child psychology was that he created a way to test children’s intelligence to tell if they would be able to be good at school or not. It was also used to test a child’s intelligence at times in their life to see if they are succeeding or not doing so great. Alfred Binet contributed to society through how him and is advisors created the test, making the first intelligence test, supporting the second intelligence test, and how he has contribute to today’s society.
The first idea of a test was created when Alfred Binet was asked to be a member of the Free Society for the Psychological Psychology at the Sorbonne. His group was appointed to the Commission for the Retarded. They were asked, “What should be the test given to children thought to possibly have learning disabilities, that might place them in a spe...
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...al age then multiplying by 100 (Mental Age/Chronological Age x 100 = IQ)
This pertains to current life because the tests that were formed back then are being taken now by everyone who goes to school. These tests are now a regular part of life and judge if students should go into harder classes, what book level they should be reading at, and how intelligent a person is overall.
My thoughts were that because of this discovery psychologist after him were able to expand on his research and make today what it is. Other people might say that it isn’t possible to know how intelligent a brain is from just one test but really the test is just estimation and shouldn’t be taken literally. Currently Alfred Binet works it still being used to base current intelligence tests of off. Alfred Binets' work has been used my many other psychologists to make other intelligence tests.
Lewis Terman created the IQ tests that many schools used to test student’s intellect capacity. This test caused many students to only be taught how to work in factories rather than learning material that could get them into better careers.
John B. Watson at a very young age showed his potential. He was enrolled at Furman University at the age of sixteen, he received his master’s degree there. After receiving his masters at Furman University he transferred to University of Chicago getting his Ph.D. He became an instructor there at the University of Chicago for four years and then becoming a professor at The Johns Hopkins University. Later on Watson became chairman of a well-known journal called Psychological Review. “In this paper, Watson rejected the introspective techniques of the school of structuralism and declared that psychology must become the science Mentalistic concept must be replaced by empirical study of observable behavior only” (Evans, 2). Soon enough Watson was
In 1904 Binet was appointed as a member of the French professional group for child psychology. It was the responsibility of this commission to be able to differentiate the intelligence of those children who were normal and those who needed special care. At this time Binet and his colleague psychiatrist Theodore Simon were able to develop the Binet-Simon intelligence scale. Binet and Simon didn't want their test to be used as an intelligence test, but to actually be used to classify individuals as normal or needing special help. Before the Binet-Simon intelligence scale special children were categorized into three sections: morons (mildest), imbeciles (moderate) and idiots (most severely deficient).
Similar to Sternberg, Binet came to the conclusion that intelligence is the sum of mental processes (Flangan, Harrison, 2005). He developed the first intelligence test in order to categorize how much children benefitted from school education. The Binet-Simon scale, keeping in mind that Binet believed in intelligence consisting of different components, thus included language component, auditory processing, learning and memory, as well as judgement and problem solving (Kamin, 1974). The results were supposed to identify the student’s mental age. Lewis Terman introduced the Binet-Simon test to America and adapted it to sort army recruits in World War I (Comer et al., 2013). The Stanford-Binet test, developed by Terman in 1916, aimed to be an improved version that was able to measure mental age more appropriately (Kamin, 1974). He was convinced that intelligence is the ability to form concepts and to think abstract (Comer et al., 2013). The Stanford-Binet test has been described by Maud Minton to be superior to other intelligence tests of that time because it was very precise, it had detailed guidelines, it measured the IQ which became the standard marking system (Flangan, Harrison,
One of the most well-known scientists of the 19th century was a German scientist named Franz Joseph Gall. Claimed as the founder of Phrenology, Gall was a pioneer in his fields of neuroanatomy, and physics, and also widely known for his theories and concepts of the localized functions of the brain and phrenology. His primary goal in his studies was to develop a functional anatomy and physiology of the brain as well as a revised psychology of personality. (http://grants.hhp.coe.uh.edu/clayne/HistoryofMC/HistoryMC/Gall.htm) This influential psychologist made many influential contributions, yet controversial at the time, to the study of psychology and the human brain.
In 1845, Horace Mann, a trusted activist on American educational reform, got the idea of having a written test instead of an annual oral test, thus would better prove childrens true intellect (site source). Mann’s goal was to find and replicate the best teaching strategies so that all kids could have equal opportunities for a great learning experience. Although this is not what happened as in World War One the
Alfred Binet, born in Nice, France, on the eleventh of July, whose mother was an
Alfred Binet was born on July 11, 1857 in Nice, France. He was an only child to artist mother and a physician father. ("Alfred Binet") His parents separated when Binet was young, and Binet stayed living with his mother. At the age of fifteen, Binet moved to Paris, France with his mother to begin law school. ("Role of Intelligence Testing in Society") In 1884, Binet married Laure Balbiani and had two daughters. Interested by Jean-Marin Charcot and his studies and work on hypnosis, in 1887, Binet abandoned his law school education. He decided to change to scientific studies at a hospital in Paris, France, where he stayed until 1891. After his journey and work at the hospital, Binet later became involved at a research laboratory at Sorbonne in 1891, and he was the director of the lab from 1895 until his death on October 18th, 1911. In a span of 21 years, Binet published over 200 books, articles, and reviews on psychology. (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica)
Standardized testing in the United States was not always common practice. In the Mid-1800s, Horace Mann, an education reformist, developed a test to administer to a group of students. Its purpose was to determine how students were performing at their current level and whether they were capable of proceeding to a higher level of education, although the student’s success on the test had no negative repercussions. These tests were a necessity at that time because the idea of public education was still being molded and these tests were the only means by which student progress could be measured. Within 35 years of the first recorded examination in 1845, testing became the factor which determined whether students were able to be promoted to the next grade.
Around the turn of the century, the French psychologist Alfred Binet performed several experiments with handwriting analysis as a device for testing personality. Binet claimed that handwriting experts could distinguish successful from unsuccessful persons with high accuracy. The German school of handwriting analysis, led by Ludwig Klages, developed a subjective and esoteric approach to graphology, and apparently never even attempted experimental verification of its claims.
Many countries designed their own intelligence tests in early time. In ancient China about 4000 years ago, Chinese designed a test in every third year to prove their competence which they have the ability to do the job for the government. Alfred Binet, who is a French psychologist, he developed the first successful test of intelligence to predict future academic success. During World War I, the U.S army used intelligence tests to evaluate and assign rec...
The era of discovery in psychology was a fast-paced and debatable one as some of the unlikeliest individuals entered into the realm of the new science. Some by accident because of their close work with other fields of science and others with the direct intent to create a new school of thought. During its inception and much of its history, deliberation over how psychology should be defined and what it should encompass filled most of the scholarly printings and closed-door discussions. As a result, in 1894 Lightner Witmer set out to define an applied psychology where help could be given to children with learning disabilities.
We first need to know who created the Cognitive Development Theory. Jean Piaget was born in
In Howard Gardner’s Frames of Mind, he proposes that there are seven main areas in which all people have special skills; he calls them intelligences. His research at Harvard University was in response to the work that Alfred Binet had done in France around 1900. Binet’s work led to the formation of an intelligence test; we are all familiar with the “intelligence quotient,” or “IQ,” the way that intelligence is measured on his test.
(2016). THE IMPORTANCE OF INSTRUMENT MAKERS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY: THE CASE OF ALFRED BINET AT THE SORBONNE LABORATORY. Journal Of The History Of The Behavioral Sciences, 52(3), 231-257. doi:10.1002/jhbs.21790