LYCOS RETRIEVER
Alfred Binet: Intelligence
built 236 days ago
After receiving his law degree in 1878, Alfred Binet began to study science at the Sorbonne. However, he was not overly interested in his formal schooling, and started educating himself by reading psychology texts at the National Library in Paris. He soon became fascinated with the ideas of John Stuart Mill, who believed that that the operations of intelligence could be explained by the the laws of associationism. Binet eventually realized the limitations of this theory, but Mill's ideas continued to influence his work.
Source:
Alfred Binet played an important role in the development of experimental psychology in France and made fundamental contributions to the measurement of intelligence. If he had known what accusations would later be used against him and other psychometricians for their alleged "mismeasurement of man", for instance the row over The Bell Curve, he might as well have let it be.
Source:
In 1895, Binet founded a laboratory at the Ecole de la Rue de la Grange aux Belles. Here he established his study of the development of intelligence by examining his own young daughters, Armande and Margeurite. In 1903, he published L'Etude Experimentale de l'Intelligence ("The Experimental Study ofIntelligence"), a well-respected work utilizing data from his work with his daughters. Also in 1895, Binet founded an annual publication called L'AnneePsychologique. Much of Binet's work was published in this journal, and he received much acclaim for his innovative methodology. His work included studies of emotion, memory, attention, and problem solving.
Source:
Although he sought to measure it systematically, Binet described intelligence simply as, "good judgment, otherwise called "good sense", "practical sense", "initiative", or the faculty of being able to adapt one's self to circumstances. To judge well, to comprehend well, to reason well, these are the essential activities of intelligence (1904)."
Source:
Alfred Binet, the IQ test inventor didn’t believe that IQ test scales qualify to measure your intelligence. He neither invented the term “intelligence quotient” (IQ) nor supported its numerical expression. After completing the foremost IQ test scale, he proclaims: