The Evolving Influence of Psychometrics in Political Science
28 Pages Posted: 1 Jul 2008
Date Written: December 1, 2005
Abstract
Psychometrics is a subfield of Psychology devoted to the development, evaluation, and application of mental tests of various kinds. These mental tests attempt to measure knowledge, attitudes, personality traits, and abilities. Psychometrics has its origins in the work of Sir Francis Galton (1822 - 1911), Karl Pearson (1857 - 1936), and Charles Spearman (1863 - 1945) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Galton's most famous work was Hereditary Genius (1869) in which he studied "illustrious" intellects and their families. His biographical data of the descendants of these illustrious intellects showed "regression to the mean" for a number of mental and physical characteristics that he regarded as important. Much of his work in the latter part of the 19th Century was devoted to eugenics. Galton was interested in measurement and developed a measure of co-relation which influenced the development of the correlation coefficient by Karl Pearson. He and Karl Pearson founded the journal Biometrika in 1901.
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