Week 1: History of Individual Differences Physiognomy: assumes you ...

Week 1: History of Individual Differences Physiognomy: assumes you can judge a person’s inner character by their appearance. Dates back to Aristotle (384 BC). Followed by Phrenology: reading bumps on head. Has been debunked since (Knight, 2007). Psychograph: can do a phrenological reading of someone’s head, rating 32 mental faculties. Earned $200,000 for invention in 1934- Gall. Lavater (1741-1801) you can judge a person’s moral character by their face characteristics. E.g. round face= caring, sensitive, with strong sexual fantasies. Ideal longterm partner- square face. Still being researched but more so around perceptions of faces e.g. mature face= dominance, perceived to be attractive in men but not in women. In late1800’s, moved from introspection and subjective methods to experimental. Early psychs thought intelligence could be measured through sensory perceptions, measured by brass instruments- designed to measure sensory thresholds. Psychophysics: Fechner: credited with introducing the median into data analysis, based on the assumption that the human perceptual system is a measuring instrument yielding results (experiences, judgements, responses) that may be systematically analysed. Wilhelm Wundt: first psych lab 1879, thought meter- found answer to long-standing astronomy problem. Swiftness of the observer. Sir Francis Galton: Cousin to Darwin, devised ways of measuring beauty and personality. James Mckeen Cattell: Used RT to measure differences in mental reaction, expanded Galton- measured motor skills e.g. strength of hand, degree of pressure to cause pain. Clark Wissler: One of Cattell’s psych students, first to use mental test scores to predict academic performance. Demonstrated both Cattell and Galton had no relationship with academic achievement. Issues: • Psychs turned away from RT and sensory measures but Wissler had a restricted range of participants’ intelligence so correlations would be reduced • RT unreliable because too few trials measured • But it did pave the way for more logical tests such as Binet’s & Wechsler's • Wissler, discouraged, moved to Anthropology, became an environmentalist and focused on explaining differences between ethnic groups Idiocy and Dementia: Esquirol (1772-1840) distinguished idiocy as a lifetime illness that could not be cured, where as dementia abruptly occurred and could be cured. Sequin (1812-1880): Helped establish new humanism towards people with intellectual disability, and developed educational programs. Alfred Binet (1857-1911): Began in medicine, but dropped out because of an emotional breakdown. pioneered individual psychology, first to establish modern psychological tests. Used his daughters as subjects, attention and subjection were important variables in intelligence. Moved from reaction time to higher processes of thinking. Hired by French govt. Aim was to classify not measure, brief and practical. Revised to Binet-Simon. Why were IQ’s created? A response to a practical need, prior to this there was little attention on children with intellectual disabilities. Goddard: translated the Binet-Simon, called to Ellis Is where immigrants were held and tested people. Anyone who was feebleminded wasn’t allowed in the country- cause