Deck 7: Measuring the Mind: Galton and Individual Differences

Question 1

Galton's book English Men of Science is notable today because it was:

A) the first to show that scientific interests are innate.
B) the first to use the self-questionnaire method to study a psychological problem, and to analyze the results statistically.
C) the first major work to use the correlation coefficient.
D) all of the above

Answer 1

B

Question 2

"The science of improving stock,which…takes cognizance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had," is a definition of the doctrine of:

A) Eugenics.
B) evolution by natural selection.
C) Social Darwinism.
D) evolution by artificial selection.

Answer 2

A

Question 3

The major purpose for which Galton devised the idea of intelligence tests was to:

A) help stream children into appropriate school classes.
B) prove that men were more intelligent than women.
C) show that psychology could be a quantitative science.
D) select the most able young people for eugenic breeding.

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Which of the following books first made a strong case for the inheritance of human psychological characteristics?

A) Darwin's Origin of Species
B) De Candolle's History of the Sciences and Scientists over Two Centuries
C) Galton's Natural Inheritance
D) Galton's Hereditary Genius

Question 5

When a student scores extremely poorly on one examination,but then improves on the next,he or she demonstrates:

A) the law of regular deviations.
B) the rebound effect.
C) random fluctuation.
D) regression toward the mean.

Question 6

The phrase "nature and nurture" was introduced and popularized by:

A) de Candolle in History of the Sciences and Scientists over Two Centuries.
B) Darwin in Origin of Species.
C) Galton in English Men of Science.
D) Newman, Freeman and Holzinger in their study of separated twins.

Question 7

The fact that physical variables such as height or weight fall into normal distributions when measured in large numbers of people was initially documented by:

A) Adolph Quetelet.
B) Charles Darwin.
C) Francis Galton.
D) Karl Pearson.

Question 8

Francis Galton's formal academic training was primarily in the fields of:

A) medicine and mathematics.
B) biology and psychology.
C) geography and statistics.
D) history and botany.

Question 9

Francis Galton's first entrée into the British scientific world came primarily through his:

A) contacts with Charles Darwin.
B) African exploration and affiliation with the royal Geographical Society.
C) fingerprinting work and collaboration with Scotland Yard.
D) prize-winning work in mathematics as a Cambridge undergraduate.

Question 10

Galton's scatter plots for the relationships between the heights of children and their parents showed that,on average:

A) tall parents had children taller than themselves.
B) tall children had parents that were taller than themselves.
C) tall children had parents shorter than themselves.
D) both a and b above

Question 11

When there is a complete absence of a relationship between two variables,the regression line representing that relationship will be:

A) horizontal.
B) 45 degrees from the horizontal.
C) either a or b above
D) irregular and curved.

Question 12

A flaw in Galton's tests of intelligence at the 1884 Anthropometric laboratory was:

A) the crudity of his measuring instruments.
B) the small number of subjects on which they were tried.
C) the underlying assumption of a strong correlation between practical intelligence and sensory acuity.
D) the statistical methods by which he analyzed his results.

Question 13

Which of the following was included among Galton's tests of "intelligence" at his 1884 Anthropometric laboratory?

A) arithmetic
B) reaction time
C) vocabulary
D) all of the above

Question 14

According to Galton's data in Hereditary Genius,which kinds of relatives are most likely to share the trait of eminence?

A) any relatives of the first three degrees, so long as they have similar environments
B) uncles and nephews
C) grandfathers and grandsons
D) brothers

Question 15

If we randomly select 100 people and arrange them in order of height,which of the following pairs will probably show the greatest differences between their two heights?

A) 10th tallest and 11th tallest
B) 49th tallest and 50th tallest
C) shortest to second shortest
D) The differences between all adjacent pairs will be about the same

Question 16

Why was Swiss botanist Alphonse de Candolle's 1872 book History of the Sciences and Scientists over Two Centuries important?

A) It showed the importance of environmental factors such as climate, government, and religious institutions in producing eminent scientists.
B) It stimulated Galton to do the research for English Men of Science.
C) It supported the strongly hereditarian position of Hereditary Genius.
D) both a and b above

Question 17

In his studies of mental imagery,Galton was surprised by the number of reports from scientists indicating:

A) an extremely vivid visualizing capacity.
B) a very weak visualizing capacity.
C) a visualizing capacity much like children's.
D) a particular capacity for visualizing numbers vividly.

Question 18

When Galton studied his own associations,he discovered that:

A) they flowed and could be recorded surprisingly easily.
B) most were determined by his immediate settings.
C) there were surprising numbers dating from childhood.
D) very few were ever repeated.

Question 19

Galton's personal conviction that differences in intellectual ability are largely innate arose in part because:

A) in school he found himself easily surpassing other students who came from much more privileged backgrounds than himself.
B) in school he found that he could not compete successfully against the very top students, despite his own privileged background.
C) he observed that the top scientists tended to come from specific countries.
D) males tended to outperform females in academic tasks.

Question 20

As a young man,Francis Galton was profoundly influenced by:

A) an uncle who taught him elementary statistics.
B) a phrenologist who told him his brain and intelligence were naturally better suited to practical than to academic pursuits.
C) a minister who convinced him to pursue altruistic goals.
D) his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, who taught him evolution.

Question 21

Which of the following represents the strongest correlation coefficient?

A) - .5
B) + .7
C) 0
D) +10

Question 22

Although Galton is best known to psychologists for his work on behavior genetics,statistical methods,and intelligence testing,he also contributed importantly to:

A) meteorology.
B) computer science.
C) geology.
D) social influence theory.

Question 23

Studies of separated identical twins have had the purpose of measuring the "heritability" of various characteristics including IQ.That heritability figure is defined as:

A) the proportion of each person's intelligence that was determined by heredity.
B) the proportion of the IQ variability within the tested population that was determined by heredity.
C) the "leftover" variability in intelligence after all environmental influences have been accounted for.
D) all of the above

Question 24

The first major study of separated twins was done in 1937 by a biologist,a psychologist,and a statistician. Which of the following is true about their study?

A) There was a positive correlation between the twins' IQ, indicating a significant role for heredity.
B) Those twin pairs who had been most completely separated and reared in different environments showed the greatest IQ differences, indicating a significant role for environment.
C) It was difficult to find identical twin pairs who had been fully separated.
D) all of the above

Question 25

Galton's word association experiments may well have had an influence on:

A) Sigmund Freud.
B) Wilhelm Wundt.
C) Charles Darwin.
D) Gustav Fechner.

Question 26

Galton justified his neurophysiological approach to intelligence testing with all of the following arguments except:

A) that mentally retarded people supposedly cannot distinguish well between hot and cold.
B) that women are supposedly both less intelligent than men, and less able to select a fine wine.
C) that large head sizes must reflect large and powerful brains within.
D) that people with quick reaction times also have large vocabularies.

Question 27

Who devised the computing formula now used to calculate correlation coefficients?

A) Kerl Holzinger
B) Karl Pearson
C) Adolph Quetelet
D) Alphonse de Candolle

Question 28

In the 1960s British psychologist Sir Cyril Burt published a study on separated twins indicating that nature was much more important than nurture in determining intelligence.All of the following statements about Burt's study are true except:

A) it temporarily tipped the balance of informed opinion toward the hereditarian view.
B) it was influenced by the ideas of Galton.
C) it was later found to be deeply flawed and perhaps fraudulent.
D) it introduced new research techniques that have continued to be employed in later twin studies.

Question 29

Which of the following has not been a problem in conducting a definitive study of separated identical twins?

A) finding twin pairs who were completely separated from each other at an early age
B) finding twin pairs reared randomly in environments representative of the full range of the general population
C) finding intelligence tests suitable for administration to close relatives
D) finding twin pairs who were not placed in randomly different adoptive environments

Question 30

In the 1920s behavioral geneticists realized that research on "separated" twins could be used to determine the "heritability" of any measurable trait,but only if certain conditions were met. Which of the following was not one of those conditions

A) The twins must be monozygotic.
B) The twins must by dizigotic.
C) The twins must have been randomly placed in a representative sample of adoptive foster homes.
D) The twins must have been separated completely and very early.