The Nature Of G, AS Seen by the Clinical Psychologist
- Author:
Wallace Wallin
Baltimore Department of Education and Johns Hopkins University These remarks are written from the standpoint of a psychoclinical practitioner who has given nearly all his time for almost two decades to the practical problems of psychological, educational, and social diagnosis and to the organization and administration of systems of corrective and developmental work for handicapped children. The writer suspects that the reason the presiding officer asked him to participate in this symposium was that he wished to have the point of view of the psychological practitioner presented.
The point of view of most psychological practitioners is similar to that of the practical engineer. The latter avails himself of the researches of the chemists and physicists which bear on his practical problems, but he is not much concerned with questions relating to the ultimate nature of the phenomena with which he deals. He gives little concern to the question as to whether the ultimate nature of matter is electrical, vitalistic, or something else, or as to whether the ulimate particles of matter consist of atoms, protons, electrons, or something entirely different from these assumed entities. He does not know whether these questions are capable of experimental solution, is satisfied to deal with matter in the gross, and cheerfully accords to the academic or speculatively-inclined chemists, physicists and metaphysicians the exclusive prerogrative of wrestling with fundamental problems of ontology.
Similarly the clinical practitioners in psychology who are making extensive use of the scales or tests of intelligence have not been much concerned with questions pertaining to the ultimate nature of the quality or the function they are alleged to measure; that is, whether it is a general property or attribute, or a complex of specific traits or qualities, or a combination of general and specific factors. He has not been much concerned with whether the general factor is voluntary attention (Burt), good judgment (Binet), general adaptability (Stern), general learning capacity (AVoodrow, Gates, Dearborn), a common fund of intellectual or mental energy JEead in the symposium on the nature of G at the Ninth International Congress of Psychology, New Haven, September 5, 1929.
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(Spearman), a general verbal factor (Kelley), a process of educing relations and correlates (Spearman), a combining activity (Ebbinghaus), or a highly complex, integrated, and sensitive cortical organization (possibly Washburn). He has not been vitally concerned with the question as to whether all intellectual activities consist of a general factor plus a factor which is specific to the trait in question but not found in any other but closely allied traits (Spearman’s latest formulation), or whether general intelligence is merely a composite of many independent particular capacities (Thorndike’s multifactor theory), or whether it is a “complex of lower or higher cognitive activities which are more or less closely interrelated and interdependent because of similarity of processes and the integrative activity of the neural mechanism,” “initiated, modified, and directed by non-intellectual factors of an effective and conative nature,” and manifesting itself in its highest operations as “successful adjustment to novel situations,’’ and “the solution of difficult problems.” (Wallin) Based upon his behavior reactions, it is fair to infer that the clinical practitioner has concluded that, pragmatically considered, the differences in the theoretical formulation of the problem are of more theoretical than practical imjjortance, that the general factor will be adequately represented if the pooling of specific traits is sufficiently comprehensive, that a fairly accurate average measure of general intelligence will be obtained by extensive exploration of many specific traits, or by a less extensive but judicious exploration of representative specific traits, and that, after all, no means exist for the measurement of general intelligence by means of a single test of some hypothetical, indefinite common or unitary function the essential nature of which remains a matter of intriguing, if not futile, speculation. He has been satisfied to test the validity and reliability of his results by the conventional measures of validity and reliability and especially by the practical method of follow-up verification of results. Doubtless his reliance on existing measures of general intelligence or ability has all along been too smugly complacent, unsophisticated, and naive. There is no more important lesson for the practitioner to learn than that existing psychological and psychiatric measures, whether of intellectual, motor, emotional, or character traits, are far from perfect, that they are affected by the personality characteristics of the examiner and by the influences of the physical and social environment as well as by native endowment (which the writer emphasized prematurely as early as 1911), that many recommendations in the field of educational, psychiatric, psychological, vocational, and social guidance are still frequently based on opinion rather than scientific measurement, that much that passes for scientific guidance in the field of psychiatry, psychology, and education is not based upon a foundation of demonstrated scientific knowledge, but is, in a measure, based upon a pretense of knowledge which sometimes amounts to sheer charlatanry, and that improvement in scientific testing techniques and ability analysis waits upon the solution of fundamental theoretical questions in psychology. Surely nothing can be of more fundamental importance to the progress of scientific guidance than the determination of questions such as these: Are there general traits or factors of intelligence, motility, emotivity, character, etc., and, if so, how shall they be defined and how can they be measured? Are there also specific traits or factors in each of these fields? If so, what are they, how shall they be differentiated and defined, how can they be accurately measured, are they independent or interdependent, or are only some independent, and, if so, what are these? What are the general, and what the specific and independent factors or traits which condition success in typewriting, horseshoeing, barbering, or measuring the distance of stars, or practicing dentistry, law, or vocational counseling, or teaching psychology or Sanskrit? What types of success in economic, social, and vocational life can be accurately predicted on the basis of the measurement of physical and mental traits in childhood and youth? What particular traits must be included in reliable comprehensive trait analyses of the legion of vocations for which a completely adequate system of public education should prepare the youth of the land? Needless to say, no body of scientific knowledge now exists adequate for satisfactory answers to these questions. It would be presumptuous to maintain that little more than the outline to the prolegomena of such a science has thus far been sketched, so multifarious, intricate, and baffling are the problems of trait differentiation and measurement.
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