The Psychology Of Intelligence And Will

H G Wyatt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781138875456
• eBook ISBN: 9781136335488
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery

This is Volume XXI of twenty-one of the Individual Differences Psychology series. First published in 1930 this essay looks to understand the conversion of the child as he is into the adult and purports to be a reasoned protest against this practice of disparagement, to challenge the assumptions, and to expose the habits of thought which account for it, and to examine typical recent instances.

PART I

INTELLIGENCE AND WILL

CHAPTER I

THE QUEST FOR INTELLIGENCE

IF there are two strictly psychological topics which would seem to a practical layman of most importance to investigate in his daily intercourse with his fellow men, one would be the topic of intelligence and the other that of character. Yet the science of psychology which has entered so many new fields in the last half and even quarter century, and is rapidly proving its utility in the practical guidance of life, has so far failed to give any adequate or coherent account of either of them.

The purpose of the first part of this work is to attempt an examination of the subject of intelligence, than which no topic or branch in psychology would seem at first sight to have been more indifferently and ineffectually treated, at any rate since psychology set about emancipating itself from speculative philosophy and claimed for itself recognition as a science.

There are of course reasons for this neglect. One of them lies in the very nature of intelligence itself. It courts obscurity. Others lie in the circumstances in which the science of psychology has been growing up: in the manner of its inception.

In fact it is the very claim of psychology to be a science, and therefore to pursue scientific methods, that has diverted psychologists from a systematic theoretical study of intelligence. The employment and the refinement of the experimental methods of the physical sciences has opened up so many new fields and has been so promising of results that psychologists have been following the line of readiest experiment. The claims of psychology to the title of a science might thus be vindicated. For the same reason there has been a considerable reluctance to deal with aspects of psychology which do not lend themselves to objective and experimental treatment, and an accompanying distrust of unscientific introspective methods. Should it turn out that the nature of intelligence can, in the last analysis, be disclosed only by introspective methods, that would provide one reason why it has been so little understood. Introspection has been out of fashion: the tendency has been to neglect rather than to improve it as a method of psychological study.

Again, by a rather curious vicissitude of fortune, the modern evolutionary approach in psychology has helped to belittle intelligence. For the explanation of human behaviour has been sought first by way of the body (physiology) and then by way of the animal lower than man (animal and comparative psychology) rather than by an investigation of it at a stage of development where the functioning of intelligence is most in evidence.

Whatever light the physiological study of psychology—the study of the bodily accompaniments of mental process—has thrown upon the phenomena of sensation and perception, and the lower levels of behaviour, it is less illuminative of the higher thought processes. Yet in accordance with the human tendency to be prejudiced by the nature of one’s occupations, the claim has been made that psychological phenomena are explicable in physiological terms, and psychological systems have actually been founded upon that basis. When we come to the higher thought processes, reflection and reasoning, physiological methods can be at best but supplementary to introspection: only introspection can disclose consciousness to consciousness. What goes on in the mind (whether above or below the conscious level) when we reason or reflect or attack intellectual problems, is not to be disclosed by examination of neural and cortical processes, but is observable only by looking within to see. Consequently intelligence has been either ignored or belittled by the physiological psychologist or evidence of it sought where it is least directly expressed. It is denied existence or significance as a distinctive psychological category.

The animal psychologist’s treatment of intelligence has been somewhat different. One early consequence of the spread of evolutionary doctrines was the tendency to seek for evidence of human intelligence in the lower animals, for it was recognized that animal and human life was continuous, and that life in its lower stages contained the promise of man. The hoped for evidence was accordingly forthcoming, but its variety and abundance were in inverse proportion to its reliability.¹ Besides, the question arose why if animals performed the intelligent feats that were ascribed to them, their ordinary everyday achievements remained so modest. A brief era of faith and of travellers’ tales about animal intelligence was succeeded by an age of scepticism and experiment.² There was a swing of the pendulum from one extreme to the other. In 1893 Lloyd Morgan announced his canon of parsimony,³ a timely caution against the premature exaltation of the animal, and a few years later Thorndike in America was busy demonstrating the mechanical nature of the so-called intelligence of cats. But the downfall of the animal carried with it the downfall of man—for man is only the animal in a later stage of development; and if intelligence in the animal is illusory, must not intelligence in man be illusory also? Romanes had attempted to raise the animal to the human level: Thorndike retorted by reducing man to the animal.⁴

But some investigators have not stopped at the animal. Impelled by ‘scientific’ conceptions and a desire for parsimony to render all human process in terms of its minima, there have not been wanting psychologists with still more radical aims. For if man is psychologically explicable in terms of the higher animal, by the same token the animal is psychologically explicable in terms of the lowlier animals, and ultimately the organic in terms of the inorganic. Man is not an animal, he is a machine.⁵ Not only intelligence, but even consciousness itself has been denied him, or has been admitted as a noteworthy but useless phenomenon, like the beauty of a rose or the endless shimmer of the sea.

But to represent these as the sole reasons for the misunderstanding of intelligence would be misleading. There have always been and always will be psychologists primarily interested in a direct study of human nature, and neglectful of no method—including introspection—that may throw any light upon their subject. But even in their case intelligence has received meagre and inadequate attention.

Three reasons in particular may be suggested for their neglect of it. One is the aggrandisement of instinct (or of original endowment) and the keenness of the controversies which that topic has aroused. Another is the modern reaction against an intellectualist, and especially a faculty, psychology. A third reason is that it has been found perfectly practicable to deal with the products of intelligence, and even, presumably, to measure intelligence itself without a systematic enquiry into the nature of the process or function that was being measured. A word on each of these reasons.

The recognition of the place of instinct, or of original endowment, in human nature has been primarily due to the interest in animal psychology itself, for here, of course, instinctive behaviour is unmistakably exhibited But instinctive behaviour is far less evident in man, and yet it is clear that there must be some starting point of common characteristics from which individual human development takes off. No one now-a-days, not even the most extreme environmentalist, accepts the doctrine of the mere blank sheet. The mind is not just an inert recipient of impressions from without.

But once we admit that the environment and the individual organism co-operate in determining the individual’s development, the question arises of their respective contributions. The controversy about instinct is in the main a controversy as to the kind and extent of the organism’s share in the matter. The interest and antagonisms which this problem has engendered has diverted attention from the equally important problem of the nature of intelligence.

And with prejudice to the solution of the problem of instinct itself; since, as will be contended later, the two factors in human behaviour are complementary, and one must have some understanding of their nature in order to delimit their respective spheres.

Illustrative of the failure adequately to recognize this fact was the symposium published in the British Journal of Psychology in 1910 professedly on the subject of the relation of Instinct to Intelligence; in which the five contributors devoted the bulk of the argument to an analysis of the concept of instinct, and disposed of intelligence in vague or general terms.⁶ This emphasis upon instinct has been accentuated by the progress of abnormal psychology, for as abnormalities are ascribable (or at any rate ascribed) more often to the mishandling of instinctive demands than to anything else, psychopathology has been largely concerned in an elaborate investigation of instinctive drives and urges. This reference of behaviour to instinct tends to obscure intelligence and to conceal its essential character.

Any realization of the essential nature of intelligence has been precluded also by another current prejudice—the fashionable (almost conventional) repudiation in psychological circles of anything savouring of a ‘faculty.’ The fallacy of the faculty psychology is claimed to have been exploded. The word faculty has become anathema. To make serious use of it is to proclaim oneself out of date. But here again the pendulum may easily have swung too far. The true count against the faculties is not that they do not exist, but that they do not exist or function in the particular way that was claimed for them, namely, as independent powers of the mind which could be treated and developed, in isolation from one another, and the sum of which working together constituted the mind in action.

But this is no reason for discarding the term altogether, or for fighting shy of any suggestion that the mind has distinguishable powers or capacities, so long as we remember that in any concrete experience they are ever affecting and conditioning one another. It is unnecessary, it may indeed be even harmful, to substitute the vaguer and less explicit term function, which implies not an actual capacity, but only a use that may be served. It may well be that the current preference for ‘function’ prejudices clear thinking by the implication of a false hypothesis; and if it turn out that faculty is a more adequate description than function of the nature of intelligence we have here a reason why the subject has been avoided, or if considered, misconceived ‘a priori.’ In seeking a function, it may well be that the faculty of intelligence has been overlooked.

Lastly, we come to the contribution of the intelligence testers. With one or two exceptions, it might seem a matter for surprise how little light they have so far shed upon the essential nature of that intelligence they have been so patiently and usefully measuring. But when we consider the circumstances of the test movement the surprise vanishes. The test movement has been a typical illustration of the way in which a science builds itself up. Science begins with observations and experiments, and proceeds to theories and systems; and in the process works out an experimental technique. Its incidental discoveries and generalizations are often of practical human service, and when this service is clear and considerable, the formulation of theories attracts for the time being the less interest and attention.

Similarly in the case of the test movement the interest has been primarily practical, and as with improved technique the results of attempts at measurement have been proving of direct utility, interest has lain rather in improving methods and technique, and less in developing the theoretical aspects of the subject. The very success of the movement has been something of a hindrance to the systematic study of intelligence as such.

Though Binet, the pioneer of the movement, felt the need of some formulation of the concept before he had worked out his test scale, his discussion was unsystematic and incidental to his main enterprise.⁷ And since his scale became widely known, and provided a point of departure for the extension of his methods, the psychologists of the movement have been so absorbed in the elaboration of tests and their results that their discussions of the nature of that which they presumed to be testing are incidental, tentative, and impressionistic rather than considered conclusions after careful analysis.

Nevertheless—and here psychology parallels the progress of other sciences—the results of experiment have prompted theoretical enquiry; progress of tests and the accumulation of test results have provoked excursions into theory And naturally; for, apart from the native curiosity of the human mind, the very business of selecting and arranging a test series, whether for testing general intelligence or some specific capacity, requires some analysis of the processes to be investigated, in order to provide for each a corresponding test.

Yet, again, this analysis can perhaps be evaded without mishap by the substitution of statistical for analytical comparisons, and by accepting more or less objective criteria of intelligence without theoretical analysis so long as the correlations come out satisfactorily. So long as the test results and the criteria tally closely, but not too closely, no immediate demand for theoretical enquiry need arise—the interested public are being supplied with an instrument for measuring and comparing something it is useful to measure and compare. Moreover, it is just a set of agreed upon useful qualities that constitute the criterion itself. “ This and that," says the teaching public, “ is what we count as intelligence," “ And this and that," reply the testers, “ is what we measure. We present you accordingly with a trouble-saving device," Consequently there have not been wanting psychologists who have expressed no interest in the theoretical side of the subject.⁸ They are satisfied that they can go on elaborating measuring instruments without it.

And indeed if that were all that the tests claimed for themselves their conclusion would be acceptable; if , that is to say, they were merely economical expedients for enabling teachers or others to confirm their own opinions. But a difficulty arises when the tests are used to check and appraise the opinions of the teachers themselves. For here we have the tests claiming to supersede their own criteria. They are caught cutting away their own foundation, denying the validity of their own premises.

From this policy of suicide there are two opposite ways of escape. One is to seek safety in numbers. The criterion is not what these or those believe, but the common measure of the opinions of a great number. The obvious retort, however, that the few are wise and the many foolish next suggests the opposite alternative—the criterion shall be the verdict of the few wise judges. But here we are worse off than before; for when we ask the experts what are the criteria of intelligence we find that they do not agree among themselves. “ Quot homines tot sententiae." They nearly all express themselves differently. But the reason they differ is precisely that they have been content with a statistical treatment of their data, and have, with rare exception...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Content
• Preface
• PART I
• I The Quest For Intelligence
• II The Stimulus-Response View of Intelligence
• III Thurstone On Intelligence
• IV The Gestalt Concept Of Intelligence
• V The Faculty Of Intelligence
• VI Thorndike On Intelligence
• VII Intelligence And Spearman’S ‘G’
• PART II
• VIII Intelligence And Instinct
• IX Intelligence The Master Of Instinct
• PART III
• X Problem Of Intelligence And Volition
• XI Free Will And A Science Of Psychology
• XII Is Volition Unique?
• XIII Representative Modern Treatments Of Volition
• XVI Conclusion And Summary
• References And Notes
• Index