Dr. Zenderland is examining the controversies which surrounded psychological tests of "intelligence" during the decade in which they were first introduced into American society (1908-1918). She focuses on the work of psychologist H. H. Goddard, America's first intelligence tester, as he disseminated these new mental measuring devices into hospitals, prisons, courtrooms, and schoolrooms in the years before World War I. Her research is based on the published and unpublished papers of psychologists, biologists, physicians, and educators most active in these early testing debates. She argues that the earliest American promoters and critics of intelligence testing cannot simply be dichotomized as believers in "nature" or "nurture"; instead, their work needs to be explained within a multidimensional context emphasizing a range of scientific, professional, and political controversies of the progressive period. To carry out this research, she is examining papers on this topic at the Archives of the History of American Psychology. The study resulting from this grant will be both the first biography of Goddard and the first detailed examination of the intelligence testing movement in its early years in America. As the debates about the nature of "intelligence" continue to this day, this project promises significant contributions in placing the debate's origins in proper perspective.
