Lewis Madison Terman, Stanford University professor of Cognitive Psychology, is best known for publication of the Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon Scale (1916), known commonly as the Stanford-Binet Test, which established the intelligence quotient (IQ) as a measure of one’s intellectual aptitude.
Hailing from a large farming family—the twelfth of fourteen children—Terman’s early life was characterized by his intellectual desire despite his rural setting and family background. Terman strongly believed that one’s IQ was inherited and was the strongest predictor of success in life.
Until Terman’s work, intelligence testing concentrated on identifying those in lower strata. In the 1920s, Terman began a longitudinal study—the first of its kind—on gifted children (referred to as “Terman’s termites”); this study continues today as the longest running study in American education. Its early results established that gifted children were not weak and sickly social misfits, as previously believed, but were generally taller, in better health, better developed physically, and better adapted socially than other children.
Terman later joined in the eugenics movement, and his published writings argued for measures to reverse society’s perceived deterioration, primarily through controlling reproduction. Terman stated it was more important for man to “control his biological evolution” than to capture the energy of the atom. This agenda promoted the enforcement of compulsory sterilization for those with low IQ scores in many U.S. states, and the absence of a public recanting of his position continues to taint Terman’s legacy and work.
Bibliography:
- Leslie, M. (2000, July/August). The vexing legacy of Lewis Terman. Stanford Magazine [Online]. Retrieved October 31, 2006, from http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/ magazine/2000/julaug/articles/terman.html
- Murchison, C. (Ed.). (1930). History of psychology in autobiography (Vol. 2, pp. 297–331). Worcester, MA: Clark University Press.
- Plucker, J. A. (Ed.). (2003). Human intelligence: Historical influences, current controversies, teaching resources [Online]. Retrieved October 31, 2006, from http://www.indiana.edu/~intell
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