Alfred Binet

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Alfred Binet
Alfred Binet.jpg
Alfred Binet
Born July 8, 1857
Nice, France
Died October 18, 1911 (aged 54)[1]
Paris, France
Nationality

French

Fields Psychology
Influences

John Stuart Mill, Ilona Gheorghiesh, Symeon Vouteros

Influenced

Jean Piaget

Spouse

Laure Balbiani

Alfred Binet (French: [bin]; July 8, 1857 October 18, 1911) was a French
psychologist who invented the first practical intelligence test, the Binet-Simon
scale.[2] The French Ministry of Education asked Binet to find a way to identify
children who were slow learners so they could be given remedial work
(Psychology Today, 9th edition, Carole Wade, p. 342). Along with his collaborator
Thodore Simon, Binet published revisions of his intelligence scale in 1908 and
1911, the last appearing just before his death.

Contents [hide]
1

Binet and Chess

Education and early career

Later career and the Binet-Simon Test

Publications

See also

Notes

References

External links

Binet and Chess[edit]

Binet had done a series of experiments to see how well chess players played
when blindfolded.[3] He found that only some of the master chess players could
play from memory and a few could play multiple games simultaneously without
looking at the boards. To remember the positions of the pieces on the boards,
some players envisioned exact replicas of specific chess sets, while others
envisioned an abstract schema of the game. Binet concluded that extraordinary
feats of memory such as blind chess playing could take a variety of mnemonic
forms. He recounted his experiments in a book entitled Psychologie des grands
calculateurs et joueurs en echec (Paris: Hachette, 1894).[4]

Education and early career[edit]

Binet attended law school in Paris, and received his degree in 1878. He also
studied Natural Sciences at the Sorbonne. His first formal position was as a
researcher at a neurological clinic, Salptrire Hospital, in Paris from 18831889.
From there, Binet went on to being a researcher and associate director of the
Laboratory of Experimental Psychology at the Sorbonne from 18911894. In
1894, he was promoted to being the director of the laboratory until 1911 (his
death). Binet also educated himself by reading psychology texts at the National
Library in Paris. He soon became fascinated with the ideas of John Stuart Mill,
who believed that the operations of intelligence could be explained by the laws of
associationism. Binet eventually realized the limitations of this theory, but Mill's
ideas continued to influence his work.

In 1883, years of unaccompanied study ended when Binet was introduced to

Charles Fere, who introduced him to Jean-Martin Charcot, the director of a clinic
called La Salptrire, Paris. Charcot became his mentor and in turn, Binet
accepted a job offer at the clinic, working in his neurological laboratory. At the
time of Binet's tenure, Charcot was experimenting with hypnotism. Binet was
strongly influenced by this great man, and published four articles about his work
in this area. Unfortunately, Charcot's conclusions did not hold up under
professional scrutiny, and Binet was forced to make an embarrassing public
admission that he had been wrong in supporting his teacher. Nevertheless, he
had established his name internationally in the field, Morton Prince for example
stating in 1904 that "certain problems in subconscious automatism will always be
associated with the names of Breuer and Freud in Germany, Janet and Alfred
Binet in France".[5]

When his involvement with hypnosis waned as a result of failure to establish

professional acceptance, he turned to the study of development spurred on by
the birth of his two daughters, Marguerite and Armande (born in 1885 and 1887,
respectively), calling Armande a subjectivist and Marguerite an objectivist, and
developing the concepts of introspection and externospection in an anticipation
of Carl Jung's psychological types.[6] In the 21-year period following his shift in
career interests, Binet "published more than 200 books, articles, and reviews in
what now would be called experimental, developmental, educational, social, and
differential psychology" (Siegler, 1992). Bergin and Cizek (2001) suggest that this
work may have influenced Jean Piaget, who later studied with Binet's collaborator
Thodore Simon in 1920. Binet's research with his daughters helped him to
further refine his developing conception of intelligence, especially the importance
of attention span and suggestibility in intellectual development.

Despite Binet's extensive research interests and wide breadth of publications,

today he is most widely known for his contributions to intelligence. Wolf (1973)
postulates that this is the result of his not being affiliated with a major university.
Because Binet did not have any formalized graduate study in psychology, he did
not hold a professorship with a prestigious institution where students and funds
would be sure to perpetuate his work (Siegler, 1992). Additionally, his more
progressive theories did not provide the practical utility that his intelligence scale
would evoke.

Binet and his coworker Fere discovered what they called transfer and they also
recognized perceptual and emotional polarization. Binet and Fere thought their
findings were a phenomenon and of utmost importance. After investigations by
many, the two men were forced to admit that they were wrong about their
concepts of transfer and polarization. Basically, their patients had known what
was expected, what was supposed to happen, and so they simply assented. Binet
had risked everything on his experiment and its results, and this failure took a toll
on him.

In 1890, Binet resigned from La Salptrire and never mentioned the place or its
director again. His interests then turned toward the development of his children,
Madeleine and Armande, who were two years apart. This research presages that
done by Jean Piaget just a short time later, regarding the development of
cognition in children.

A job presented itself for Binet in 1891 at the Laboratory of Physiological

Psychology at the Sorbonne. He worked for a year without pay and by 1894, he

took over as the director. This was a position that Binet held until his death, and it
enabled him to pursue his studies on mental processes. While directing the
Laboratory, Theodore Simon applied to do doctoral research under Binet's
supervision. This was the beginning of their long, fruitful collaboration. During
this time he also co-founded the French journal of psychology, L'Annee
psychologique, serving as the director and editor-in-chief.

Later career and the Binet-Simon Test[edit]

In 1899, Binet was asked to be a member of the Free Society for the
Psychological Study of the Child. French education changed greatly during the
end of the nineteenth century, because of a law that passed which made it
mandatory for children ages six to fourteen to attend school. This group to which
Binet became a member hoped to begin studying children in a scientific manner.
Binet and many other members of the society were appointed to the Commission
for the Retarded. The question became "What should be the test given to children
thought to possibly have learning disabilities, that might place them in a special
classroom?" Binet made it his problem to establish the differences that separate
the normal child from the abnormal, and to measure such differences. L'Etude
experimentale de l'intelligence (Experimental Studies of Intelligence) was the
book he used to describe his methods and it was published in 1903.

Development of more tests and investigations began soon after the book,with the
help of a young medical student named Theodore Simon. Simon had nominated
himself a few years before as Binet's research assistant and worked with him on
the intelligence tests that Binet is known for, which share Simon's name as well.
In 1905, a new test for measuring intelligence was introduced and simply called
the BinetSimon scale. In 1908, they revised the scale, dropping, modifying, and
adding tests and also arranging them according to age levels from three to
thirteen.

In 1904 a French professional group for child psychology, La Socit Libre pour
l'Etude Psychologique de l'Enfant, was called upon by the French government to
appoint a commission on the education of retarded children. The commission was
asked to create a mechanism for identifying students in need of alternative
education. Binet, being an active member of this group, found the impetus for
the development of his mental scale.

Binet and Simon, in creating what historically is known as the Binet-Simon Scale,
comprised a variety of tasks they thought were representative of typical
children's abilities at various ages. This task-selection process was based on their
many years of observing children in natural settings. They then tested their

measurement on a sample of fifty children, ten children per five age groups. The
children selected for their study were identified by their school teachers as being
average for their age. The purpose of this scale of normal functioning, which
would later be revised twice using more stringent standards, was to compare
children's mental abilities relative to those of their normal peers (Siegler, 1992).

The scale consisted of thirty tasks of increasing difficulty. The easier ones could
be done by everyone. Some of the simplest test items assessed whether or not a
child could follow a beam of light or talk back to the examiner. Slightly harder
tasks required children to point to various named body parts, repeat back a series
of 2 digits, repeat simple sentences, and to define words like house, fork or
mama. More difficult test items required children to state the difference between
pairs of things, reproduce drawings from memory or to construct sentences from
three given words such as "Paris, river and fortune." The hardest test items
included asking children to repeat back 7 random digits, find three rhymes for the
French word "obisance" and to answer questions such as "My neighbor has been
receiving strange visitors. He has received in turn a doctor, a lawyer, and then a
priest. What is taking place?" (Fancher, 1985).

Reproduction of an item from the 1908 Binet-Simon intelligence scale, showing

three pairs of pictures, about which the tested child was asked, "Which of these
two faces is the prettier?" Reproduced from the article "A Practical Guide for
Administering the Binet-Simon Scale for Measuring Intelligence" by J. W. Wallace
Wallin in the March 1911 issue of the journal The Psychological Clinic (volume 5
number 1), public domain.
For the practical use of determining educational placement, the score on the
Binet-Simon scale would reveal the child's mental age. For example, a 6-year-old
child who passed all the tasks usually passed by 6 year-oldsbut nothing beyond
would have a mental age that exactly matched his chronological age, 6.0.
(Fancher, 1985).

Binet was forthright about the limitations of his scale. He stressed the remarkable
diversity of intelligence and the subsequent need to study it using qualitative, as
opposed to quantitative, measures. Binet also stressed that intellectual
development progressed at variable rates and could be influenced by the
environment; therefore, intelligence was not based solely on genetics, was
malleable rather than fixed, and could only be found in children with comparable
backgrounds (Siegler, 1992). Given Binet's stance that intelligence testing was
subject to variability and was not generalizable, it is important to look at the
metamorphosis that mental testing took on as it made its way to the U.S.

While Binet was developing his mental scale, the business, civic, and educational
leaders in the U.S. were facing issues of how to accommodate the needs of a
diversifying population, while continuing to meet the demands of society. There
arose the call to form a society based on meritocracy (Siegler,1992) while
continuing to underline the ideals of the upper class. In 1908, H.H. Goddard, a
champion of the eugenics movement, found utility in mental testing as a way to
evidence the superiority of the white race. After studying abroad, Goddard
brought the Binet-Simon Scale to the United States and translated it into English.

Following Goddard in the U.S. mental testing movement was Lewis Terman, who
took the Simon-Binet Scale and standardized it using a large American sample.
The new Standford-Binet scale was no longer used solely for advocating
education for all children, as was Binet's objective. A new objective of intelligence
testing was illustrated in the Stanford-Binet manual with testing ultimately
resulting in "curtailing the reproduction of feeble-mindedness and in the
elimination of an enormous amount of crime, pauperism, and industrial
inefficiency (p.7)" Terman, L., Lyman, G., Ordahl, G., Ordahl, L., Galbreath, N., &
Talbert, W. (1916). The Stanford Revision and Extension of the Binet-Simon Scale
for Measuring Intelligence. Baltimore: Warwick & York.(White, 2000).

It follows that we should question why Binet did not speak out concerning the
newfound uses of his measure. Siegler (1992) pointed out that Binet was
somewhat of an isolationist in that he never traveled outside France and he
barely participated in professional organizations. Additionally, his mental scale
was not adopted in his own country during his lifetime and therefore was not
subjected to the same fate. Finally, when Binet did become aware of the "foreign
ideas being grafted on his instrument" he condemned those who with 'brutal
pessimism' and 'deplorable verdicts' were promoting the concept of intelligence
as a single, unitary construct (White, 2000).

He did many studies of children. His experimental subjects ranged from 3 to 18

years old. Binet published the third version of the Binet-Simon scale shortly
before his death in 1911. The Binet-Simon scale was and is hugely popular
around the world, mainly because of the vast literature it has fostered, as well as
its relative ease of administration.

Since his death, many people in many ways have honored Binet, but two of these
stand out. In 1917, the Free Society for the Psychological Study of the Child, of
which Binet became a member in 1899 and which prompted his development of
the intelligence tests, changed their name to La Socit Alfred Binet, in memory

of the renowned psychologist. The second honor was not until 1984, when the
journal Science 84 picked the Binet-Simon scale as one of twenty of the century's
most significant developments or discoveries.

He studied sexual behavior, coining the term erotic fetishism to describe

individuals whose sexual interests in nonhuman objects, such as articles of
clothing,[7] and linking this to the after-effects of early impressions in an
anticipation of Freud.[8]

He also studied abilities of Valentine Dencausse, the most famous chiromancer in

Paris in those days.

Publications[edit]
La psychologie du raisonnement; Recherches exprimentales par l'hypnotisme
(Paris, Alcan, 1886; English translation, 1899). Published in English as The
psychology of reasoning, based on experimental researches in hypnotism
(Chicago, Open court publishing company, 1899).
Le magntisme animal (Paris, F. Alcan, 1887). Published in English as Animal
Magnetism (New York, D. Appleton and company, 1888)
Perception intrieure (1887).
Etudes de psychologie exprimentale (1888).
Les altrations de la personnalit (Paris: F. Alcan, 1892). Published in English as
Alterations of personality (New York : D. Appleton and company, 1896).
The Psychic Life of Micro-Organisms: A Study in Experimental Psychology (1894)
Introduction la psychologie exprimentale (1894; with co-authors).
On Double Consciousness (1896).
Binet, A. & Henri, V. La fatigue intellectuelle (Paris, Schleicher frres, 1898).
La Suggestibilit (Paris: Schleicher, 1900).
Etude exprimentale de l'intelligence (1903).
L'me et le corps (1905). Published in English as The Mind and the Brain (London:
Kegan Paul, Trench, Trbner & co. ltd.).
Les rvlations de l'criture d'aprs un contrle scientifique (Paris: Flix Alcan,
1906).

Binet, A. & Simon, T. Les enfants anormaux (Paris, A. Colin, 1907). Published in
English as Mentally defective children (1907).
Les ides modernes sur les enfants (Paris, E. Flammarion, 1909).
L'intelligence des imbecile (L'anne psychologique, 15, 1147, 1909). Published
in English as The intelligence of the feeble-minded (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins
company, 1916).
Alfred Binet was one of the founding editors of L'anne psychologique, a yearly
volume comprising original articles and reviews of the progress of psychology still
in print.

See also[edit]
Portal icon

Psychology portal

Stanford-Binet IQ test
Notes[edit]
Jump up ^ Alfred Binet lived approximately 54 years which was common around
this time period. [1], (February 20, 2004).
Jump up ^ O. L. Zangwill, 'Binet, Alfred', in R. Gregory, The Oxford Companion to
the Mind (1987) p. 88
Jump up ^ Gregory ed., p. 155
Jump up ^ Alfred Binet, Psychologie des grands calculateurs et joueurs en echec,
(Paris: Hachette, 1894).
Jump up ^ Henri Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious (1970) p. 791
Jump up ^ Ellenberger, p. 702-3
Jump up ^ Binet, A. (1887). "Le ftichisme dans l'amour". Revue Philosophique
24: 143167, 252274.
Jump up ^ Sigmund Freud, On Sexuality (PFL 7) p. 67
References[edit]
Avanzini, Guy (1999), Alfred Binet (in French), Presses universitaires de France,
ISBN 2-13-049816-7
Foschi, Renato; Cicciola, Elisabetta (2006), "Politics and naturalism in the 20th
century psychology of Alfred Binet.", History of psychology (Nov 2006) 9 (4), pp.
26789, doi:10.1037/1093-4510.9.4.267, PMID 17333631

Klein, Alexandre (2011) Correspondance dAlfred Binet, Volume 2 Lmergence

de la psychologie scientifique (18841911). Nancy : Presses Universitaires de
Nancy. http://www.lcdpu.fr/livre/?GCOI=27000100152160
Klein, Alexandre (2011) "Les apports de la correspondance dAlfred Binet
lhistoire de la psychologie", Recherches & ducations, Hors-srie Centenaire
Binet, 5375. http://rechercheseducations.revues.org/index803.html
Klein, Alexandre Correspondance d'Alfred Binet -Jean Larguier des Bancels,
Nancy, PUN, 2008. http://www.lcdpu.fr/livre/?GCOI=27000100578310
Klein, Alexandre (2009) "La philosophie scientifique d'Alfred Binet", Revue
d'Histoire des sciences, 2009/5, http://www.cairn.info/resume.php?
ID_ARTICLE=RHS_622_0373
Klein, Alexandre (2008) "Les critures du moi en histoire des sciences : les
apports de la correspondance dAlfred Binet", Jahrbuch fr Europische
Wissenschaftskultur (Yearbook for European Culture of Science), Bd. 4 (2008), p.
101115.
Staum, Martin S (2007), "Ribot, Binet, and the emergence from the
anthropological shadow.", Journal of the history of the behavioral sciences 43 (1),
pp. 118, doi:10.1002/jhbs.20206, PMID 17205542
Faber, Diana (2003), "Archival note: an inquiry into the relationship between
Alfred Binet and Cyril Burt.", Journal of the history of the behavioral sciences 39
(3), pp. 28997, doi:10.1002/jhbs.10111, PMID 12891695
Nicolas, Serge; Ferrand, Ludovic (2002), "Alfred Binet and higher education.",
History of psychology (Aug 2002) 5 (3), pp. 26483, doi:10.1037/10934510.5.3.264, PMID 12269336
Binet, A; Simon, T (1997), "An investigation concerning the value of the oral
method. 1909.", American annals of the deaf (Jul 1997) 142 (3), pp. 3545, PMID
9222149
Martin, O (1997), "[Psychological measurement from Binet to Thurstone, (1900
1930)]", Revue de synthse / Centre international de synthse (4), pp. 45793,
PMID 11625304
Huertas, R; del Cura, M (1996), "Not Available", Asclepio; archivo iberoamericano
de historia de la medicina y antropologa mdica 48 (2), pp. 11527, PMID
11636466
Shephard, A H (1989), "Contributions to the history of psychology: LVII. TermanBinet communication.", Perceptual and motor skills (Jun 1989) 68 (3 Pt 1), pp.
9368, doi:10.2466/pms.1989.68.3.936, PMID 2664700
Siegler, R. S. (1992). The other Alfred Binet. Developmental Psychology, 28(2),
179-190. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.28.2.179

Stocking, G W (1980), "Innovation in the Malinowskian mode: an essay review of

long-term field research in social anthropology", Journal of the history of the
behavioral sciences (Jul 1980) 16 (3), pp. 2816, doi:10.1002/15206696(198007)16:3<281::AID-JHBS2300160310>3.0.CO;2-0, PMID 11610713
Sarason, S B (1976), "The unfortunate fate of Alfred Binet and school
psychology", Teachers College record 77 (4), pp. 58092, PMID 11636093
Pollack, R H (1971), "Binet on perceptual-cognitive development or Piaget-comelately", Journal of the history of the behavioral sciences (Oct 1971) 7 (4), pp. 370
4, doi:10.1002/1520-6696(197110)7:4<370::AID-JHBS2300070407>3.0.CO;2-0,
PMID 11609528
Wolf, T. H. (1969), "The emergence of Binet's conceptions and measurement of
intelligence: a case history of the creative process. Part II", Journal of the history
of the behavioral sciences (Jul 1969) 5 (3), pp. 20737, doi:10.1002/15206696(196907)5:3<207::AID-JHBS2300050302>3.0.CO;2-G, PMID 11610158
Wolf, T. H. (1969), "The emergence of Binet's conception and measurement of
intelligence: a case history of the creative process", Journal of the history of the
behavioral sciences (Apr 1969) 5 (2), pp. 11334, doi:10.1002/15206696(196904)5:2<113::AID-JHBS2300050203>3.0.CO;2-5, PMID 11610191
Silverman, H. L.; Krenzel, K, (1964), "Alfred Binet: Prolific Pioneer in Psychology",
The Psychiatric quarterly. Supplement 38, pp. 32335, PMID 14301636
External links[edit]
Wikisource has original works written by or about:
Alfred Binet
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alfred Binet.
Webdocumentary (in French) Alfred Binet. Naissance de la psychologie
scientifique
Short biography, bibliography, and links on digitized sources in the Virtual
Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Human Intelligence: Alfred Binet
Works by Alfred Binet at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Alfred Binet at Internet Archive
Works by Alfred Binet at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
Binet's Self-Consciousness at the Wayback Machine (archived July 24, 2003)
New Methods for the Diagnosis of the Intellectual Level of Subnormals by Alfred
Binet

Le Magnetisme Animal by Alfred Binet

Authority control
WorldCat VIAF: 76312218 LCCN: n50009385 ISNI: 0000 0001 2140 0116 GND:
118511033 SELIBR: 178328 SUDOC: 026729105 BNF: cb11892077m (data) NLA:
35018692 NDL: 00433321 NKC: nlk20000079946 BNE: XX877457 CiNii:
DA00479020
Categories: 1857 births1911 deathsUniversity of Paris alumniFrench
psychologistsEducational psychologistsPsychological testingFrench
graphologistsIntelligence researchers19th-century French people20th-century
French people
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