Alfred Binet: biography of the creator of the first intelligence test.
We review the life and work of one of the most important psychology researchers in history.
Today most of us know what an intelligence test is. Used in clinical, school and work settings, thanks to them we can have an approximate measure of one's intellectual capacity, which allows, for example, to adjust education and training to the specific individual needs of those subjects with a level well above or below the average.
However, intelligence tests have not always been around, being in fact a relatively recent invention. The first of them all was created by Alfred BinetWe will now briefly review his biography.
Biography of Alfred Binet
His father was a doctor and his mother a painter, Alfred Binet was born in Nice during the eighth of July 1857..
His parents would soon separate, moving with his mother to Paris. There he continued his education at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he finished high school. Once he finished his studies, and as Piaget would do some time later, Alfred Binet would decide to study law at the Sorbonne. However, he would end up developing a certain interest in psychology, in which he would begin in a self-taught way.
Binet married the daughter of the embryologist Edouard-Gérard Balbiani in 1884, who encouraged him to study the natural sciences, and he would later be encouraged by Ribot to continue his studies in psychology.
Start and research in the psychological area.
Attracted by the psychological work on hypnosis and suggestion, subjects of great interest at the time, he would end up working together with Charcot at the Salpêtrière on aspects such as hypnosis, transference and perceptual polarization. He remained at that hospital until 1891, when he was forced to publicly acknowledge as his own a series of methodological errors committed by Charcot as director of research during the investigation with supposedly hypnotized subjects. After that he would leave Salpetriere and his hitherto mentor, as well as the research on hypnosis and suggestion.
The birth (in 1885 and 1888) and growth of his daughters would help him to focus on other aspects of psychology, contributing greatly to the focus of his research on evolutionary development. He would make many observations regarding their growth, which would lead him to develop a concept of intelligence and even begin to develop a basis for the emergence of differential psychology.
With the passage of time helped found the first psychological research laboratory in his country in 1889. in 1889. He would become the director of this laboratory, holding the position until his death.
During the year 1892, the psychiatrist Théodore Simon, who would eventually collaborate with him in the creation of the first intelligence scale, would contact him. Binet would tutor his doctoral thesis on children with intellectual disabilities.
In addition, in 1895 Binet created the first French journal of psychology, l'Année Psychologique.
Measuring intelligence
At that time, the French government declared compulsory schooling for all children between the ages of six and fourteen. However, the sudden emergence of this law led to the observation of a large difference in the baseline level of intelligence. difference in the baseline level of knowledge and skills of the pupils.The administration decided that it was necessary to be able to classify pupils who had great difficulty in following a formal education.
To this end, the Gallic government organized a commission to study in a scientific way how to identify those individuals with difficulties to follow an ordinary education, as well as the way they could be educated and the measures to be taken with them. Binet would be part of this commission, which ended up dictating that it was necessary to establish a method to identify students with educational and/or intellectual delays. It would also determine the need to separate such students from the regular classes, thus giving rise to special education.
Although it was necessary to use some kind of mechanism or instrument to classify the abilities of the students, at that time the only existing psychical measurements were the following were based on Galton's biometric method, which obtained data from the measurement of physical and physiological attributes.which obtained data from the measurement of physical and physiological attributes. However, intelligence is a construct that could not be measured in the same way, so Binet was asked to develop some kind of instrument for this purpose.
The Binet-Simon scale
With Simon's help, Binet would develop in 1905 the first scale for measuring intelligence, the Binet-Simon scale. This scale would use an executive criterion in which children had to use their abilities to solve certain tasks. These tests ranged from the more sensory to more abstract tests that forced the use of intellectual capacity. The aim is to measure what both Binet and Simon understood as a fundamental factor of intelligence, practical judgment or common sense (based on the ability to understand, judge and reason correctly).
A total of thirty tasks were elaborated, especially linked to the verbal aspect and problem solving. The main objective was to be able to to distinguish those children between the ages of three and thirteen years who had difficulties in following a normative difficulties in following a normative education in order to be able to offer them reinforcement. The age of the subject was taken into account, with the difficulty and level of abstraction of the tests increasing with age. No precise measurement of intellectual level was intended, so in its original version this scale does not include a precise scoring method.
This would change in 1908, when Binet would carry out a revision of this scale in which he would include the concept of mental age, understood as the age at which the majority of people considered normative are capable of solving the same number of problems. This made it possible to establish whether there were more or less significant delays.as well as a better classification of individuals.
Alfred Binet was against the idea that intellectual capacities were unmodifiable, proposing the need for those who could be considered normative to be able to solve the same number of problems.He was against the idea that children with below-average capacities should take special training courses in order to increase them. He considered that the environment had a fundamental importance in the development of abilities, not believing that differences in intelligence were due solely to Biological causes.
This scale was quickly popularized because of the need for it and its ease of application. Binet would continue to make improvements on it, but shortly after his third revision was published he died of a stroke in 1911.
Binet's legacy in psychology
After his death, and even before his death, many other authors became interested in the scale created in collaboration with Simon. A year before his death Goddard translated the scale into English and tried to bring it to the United States.However, the presence of significant differences between the French and American populations led to methodological difficulties.
Shortly afterwards, in 1912, Stern would work on the results obtained from the scale and would emphasize that the presence of specific delays at different ages has a more relevant meaning and implies greater or lesser alteration at a certain age, creating the concept of Intelligence Quotient.
Aware of the difficulties of application due to population differences and in knowledge of the concepts that other authors such as Stern elaborated, Terman would carry out a revision of the Binet scale, which would be called the Stanford-Binet scale. would receive the name of Stanford-Binet scale.. In this scale he would include the measurement of Stern's Intelligence Quotient, multiplying it by one hundred in order to eliminate fractions. It would then create the IQ that is known today, allowing a more accurate measurement of the level of intelligence.
The Stanford-Binet scale would be the main test of intelligence for decades, until it was the birth of the Weschler scales, the Stanford-Binet scale would be the main test of intelligence for decades, until it was surpassed by the birth of the Weschler scales..
In conclusion, Alfred Binet's contributions to psychology have been of great importance, his work being an inspiration for many other authors such as Weschler or Piaget. However, his work has been used on many occasions to separate, label and disaggregate children with intellectual difficulties, his scale being applied with a purpose opposite to that intended by the author (to reinforce and help children with difficulties).
Other contributions
Although Alfred Binet is mainly known for being the creator of the first intelligence test, his work was not exclusively concerned with this aspect.
For example, Binet Binet worked on the definition of what we nowadays consider fetishismunderstanding it as the product of the memory of a sexual arousal that appeared during childhood, being the fetish object the elicitor of this memory. Likewise, he would also propose a differentiation between small fetish and big fetish, being the paraphilic behavior proper of the second one.
He also made several contributions during his time at the Salpêtrière, such as several studies on hypnosis and suggestibility, or other contributions such as some related to the study of personality.
Other works of interest include several studies on visual memory and intelligencewhich he would carry out based on the game of chess. Although initially it was suggested that a good player had a high visual memory and this induced him to be able to play correctly, the conclusions of the study showed that creativity and experience were also necessary.
Finally, it is also known his work regarding graphology, or how the way a person writes can provide us with information about their way of being and perceiving.
Bibliographical references:
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Binet, A. (1887). Le fétichisme dans l'amour. Paris, Payot.
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Gregory, R.J. (2001). Psychological assessment. Concepts, methods and case studies. Ed. Pirámide: Madrid.
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Sanz, L.J. and Álvarez, C.A. (2012). Evaluation in Clinical Psychology. Manual CEDE de Preparación PIR. 05. CEDE: Madrid.
(Updated at Apr 13 / 2024)