Arthur Jensen (psychologist)

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Arthur Jensen (2002)

Arthur Robert Jensen (born August 24, 1923 in San Diego , California , † October 22, 2012 in Kelseyville , California) was an American psychologist . In the discussion about the causes of differences in intelligence he was an important advocate of the point of view that intelligence is to a large extent genetic.

Jensen's scientific work, which comprises more than 400 articles, book chapters and books, deals with intelligence research on a broad basis. In his controversial public reception, the focus was on Jensen in 1969 in the specialist article How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement? also attributed the difference between the mean IQ of whites and blacks, often found in intelligence tests, to genetic differences.

Life

Jensen's mother was Linda Mary, b. Schachtmayer, his father Arthur Alfred Jensen, President of the Dixie Lumber Co.

Jensen studied at the University of California, Berkeley (BA 1945), at San Diego State University (MA 1952) and received his doctorate in 1956 from Columbia University . As a professor, he then taught at Berkeley .

scientist

In February 1969, he published the controversial article How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement? In the Harvard Educational Review . . It is based on a report in which the United States Commission on Civil Rights had found in 1967 that a compensatory education program had not led to the desired increase in the performance of socially disadvantaged students during the period under study. Looking for reasons for this observation he concludes that differences in IQ were subject to a strong genetic influence. He questions the usefulness of programs that aim to increase intelligence as measured by IQ tests and suggests promoting specific skills instead. Since Jensen also applies his theory to the poorer performance of blacks compared to whites in common IQ tests on average, he was accused of racism after the article was published . Although Jensen had a letter in which the editors of the Harvard Educational Review specifically asked him to comment on the issue in his article, the editors denied the request as a result of the angry public response.

Jensen believed that working-class and lower-class children can have good level I performance - even if their IQ is low. Jensen complains that “the traditional methods of classroom teaching were developed in sections of the population who had a predominantly medium-sized model of talent” and calls for a school that not only takes the middle-class learning style into account. Based on Hick's law , the Jensen box developed by Jensen can be used to measure information processing speed as an indicator of intelligence.

Jensen served on the editorial board of the journals Intelligence and Personality and Individual Differences . Jensen was awarded the Kistler Prize in 2003 and the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006, the highest honor awarded by the International Society for Intelligence Research .

Feedback and criticism

The publication of his essay on the genetic condition of intelligence resulted in strong protests and even death threats. As a result of these protests, the Harvard Educational Review magazine , in which the article appeared, temporarily banned Jensen from reprinting his work.

The paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould attacked in 1981 Jensen's thesis in his book The Mismeasure of Man (in the original The Mismeasure of Man ) sharply. Jensen published a review of the book in which he accused Gould of constructing straw man positions and the lack of engagement with current research.

Jensen has published several times in "Neue Anthropologie", the journal of the right-wing extremist society for biological anthropology, eugenics and behavioral research .

literature

items
  • Black, white, yellow - who is smarter. In: Geo-Magazin. Hamburg 1980,3, pp. 146-148. Forum: After new research, the American psychologist asks questions about the debate with which he has already shocked the world. ISSN  0342-8311

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Jensen, Arthur. In: Current biography yearbook. HW Wilson Company, 1974, p. 206.
  2. Arthur R. Jensen: How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement? In: Harvard Educational Review. Vol. 39, No. 1, Winter 1969, pp. 1–123.
  3. a b Genetics and Education: a second look. In: New Scientist . Oct 12, 1972, p. 96.
  4. Jensen, quoted from: Hans Jürgen Eysenck: Die inequality of people . Orion Heimreiter Verlag , Kiel 1984. ISBN 3-89093-100-6 , p. 245.
  5. ^ Websites of Intelligence and Personality and Individual Differences , accessed February 21, 2011.
  6. http://www.isironline.org/2006-lifetime-achievement-award/
  7. Reception of the article (English)
  8. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt: Books of the Times. In: The New York Times . October 21, 1981. Review of Gould's book in the New York Times.
  9. ^ Arthur R. Jensen: The Debunking of Scientific Fossils and Straw Persons . In: Contemporary Education Review . tape 1 , no. 2 , 1982, p. 121-135 ( debunker.com ).