Alfred Binet

1857-1911

French Psychologist

Alfred Binet played an important role in the development of experimental and child psychology. Together with Theodore Simon, he developed the first tests designed to measure intelligence and compute mental age. Many presentday intelligence tests are based on the original Binet-Simon tests.

Binet was born on July 18, 1857, in Nice, France. His father was a physician, and his mother an artist. Although trained as a lawyer, he found that the legal profession did not suit him; he was more interested in understanding the workings of the human brain. In 1878 he went to study and work at the Salpetriere Hospital in Paris under the neurologist Jean Charcot (1825-1893). He married Laure Balbiani, the daughter of an embryologist at the College de France, in 1884. He remained at the Salpetriere for 13 years, and also worked in his father-inlaw's laboratory.

In 1891, Binet began working in an experimental psychology clinic at the Sorbonne. He was appointed its director four years later, and held the position for the rest of his life. Binet was interested in measuring individual differences in mental characteristics, believing that understanding normal variations was key to developing a general theory of intellectual development. He was not convinced of the importance of research on human perception, which was stressed in Germany at that time. Instead, he attempted to measure reasoning ability using paper and pencil tests, often involving pictures. He undertook a careful study of his own two daughters as they grew, and published his observations in The Experimental Study of Intelligence. He also founded the first French psychology journal, called L'Année Psychologique, which still exists today.

In order to research practical problems regarding the education of children, Binet and Ferdinand Buisson (1841-1932) established an organization called "Societe Libre pour l'Etude Psychologique de l'Enfant." This prompted the French government to appoint Binet to a commission charged with designing a mechanism for early identification of slow learners so that they could be afforded remedial assistance. The test he developed with Theodore Simon was intended to measure the mental age of the child. It evaluated the degree to which the child could perform such tasks as following commands, copying patterns, and sorting objects. The test was administered to Paris schoolchildren so that a standard scale of expected performance could be established. The ratio of a child's measured mental age to his or her chronological age was called the intelligence quotient, or IQ.

The concept of the IQ became enormously influential, with standardized tests like the Stanford-Binet being widely administered for generations. Today the entire idea of intelligence testing is controversial. Many argue that the tests are discriminatory, or that they measure knowledge rather than inherent intelligence. In fact, there is no real agreement on the definition of general intelligence. The notion of "multiple intelligences," that is, different but equally valuable types of abilities, has become more popular.

Probably due to the rather unusual educational path he had taken in his career, Binet was never offered a professorship in France, and this bothered him greatly. After visiting Bucharest to great acclaim he was offered a chair in psychophysiology, but was not interested in moving away from Paris. He died there on October 18, 1911.

SHERRI CHASIN CALVO