Robert Yerkes

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Robert Yerkes bigraphy, stories - American eugenicist

Robert Yerkes : biography

May 26, 1876 – February 3, 1956

Robert Mearns Yerkes (May 26, 1876 – February 3, 1956) was an American psychologist, ethologist, and primatologist best known for his work in intelligence testing and in the field of comparative psychology.

Yerkes was a pioneer in the study both of human and primate intelligence and of the social behavior of gorillas and chimpanzees. Along with John D. Dodson, Yerkes developed the Yerkes-Dodson law relating arousal to performance.

As time went on, however, Yerkes began to propagate his support for eugenics in the 1910s and 1920s. His works are largely considered biased toward outmoded racialist theories by modern anthropologists and academics.. Facing History. Retrieved February 17, 2010.. Google Books. Retrieved February 17, 2010.

He also served on the board of trustees of Science Service, now known as Society for Science & the Public, from 1921-1925.

National Research Council

Immediately after World War I, Yerkes worked as a paid officer for the United States National Research Council (NRC) and took the helm of the NRC Committee for Research in Problems of Sex. The Committee for Research in Problems of Sex helped Yerkes establish close relationships with officers from Rockefeller philanthropic foundations. These relationships later helped him to solicit substantial funds for his chimpanzee projects.

Publications

  • 1907, The Dancing Mouse, A Study in Animal Behavior
  • 1911, Introduction to Psychology
  • 1911, Methods of Studying Vision in Animals (with John B. Watson)
  • 1914, Outline of a Study of the Self
  • 1915, A Point Scale for Measuring Mental Ability (with co-authors)

Intelligence testing and Eugenics

In 1917, Yerkes served as president of the American Psychological Association (APA). Under his urging, the APA began several programs devoted to the war effort in World War I. As chairman of the Committee on the Psychological Examination of Recruits, he developed the Army’s Alpha and Beta Intelligence Tests, the first nonverbal group tests, which were given to over 1 million United States soldiers during the war.

The test ultimately concluded that recent immigrants (especially those from Southern and Eastern Europe) scored considerably lower than older waves of immigration (from Northern Europe), and was used as one of the eugenic motivations for harsh immigration restriction. The results would later be criticized as very clearly only measuring acculturation, as the test scores correlated nearly exactly with the number of years spent living in the US.

In his introduction to Carl C. Brigham’s A Study of American Intelligence (which helped popularize eugenics in the U.S.), Yerkes warned that "no citizen can afford to ignore the menace of race deterioration." The study was based on the findings of Yerkes and Brigham regarding the alarming results of the Army intelligence tests: nearly half of the white draft (47.3%) was feebleminded,Brigham 1923, 80-86; Yerkes 1921, 785 with blacks and the newer immigrant groups achieving the lowest scores.

Although Yerkes claimed that the tests measured native intelligence, and not education or training, this claim is difficult to sustain in the face of the questions themselves: Question 18 of Alpha Test 8 reads: "Velvet Joe appears in advertisements of … (tooth powder)(dry goods)(tobacco)(soap)." The tests themselves read like a kind of early 20th century Trivial Pursuit.Diane B. Paul, Controlling Human Heredity: 1865 to the Present, 1995; pages 65–67, 109, Figure 4.4 on page 66 is Alpha Test 8, Forms 8 and 9. For more on this problem, see the link below to Stephen Jay Gould, A Nation of Morons

Along with Edward L. Thorndike, Yerkes was a member and Chairman of the Committee on Inheritance of Mental Traits, part of the Eugenics Record Office, which was founded by Charles Benedict Davenport, a former teacher of Yerkes at Harvard."Testing For Order And Control In The Corporate Liberal State", Clarence J. Karier, pages 108-137, Roots of Crisis: American Education in the Twentieth Century, ed. C. J. Karier, P. Violas, J. Spring. Page 112 here. See also below, Autobiography of Robert Mearns Yerkes, 1930.