Sunday, March 01, 2026

IQ score and the “seduction of quantification”: Concise overview of the historical #eugenics use of #IQ and emerging new conceptualizations—#g #WJV #CHC #POT #processoverlap #schoolpsychology #schoolpsychologists #emergentproperty

Click on image to enlarge for easy reading




I stumbled on this relatively concise article that provides a nice (and brief) overview of the historical “bad days” of IQ test and score misuse.  Don’t let the title’s focus on epilepsy deter you from reading—the content is relevant to thinking about intelligence and IQ scores in general.  After the succinct overview of the horrible historical uses of IQ tests and scores, the article touches on contemporary theories and thinking (e.g., process overlap theory or POT; CHC cognitive abilties theory) that view the IQ score as nothing more than a statistical emergent property index—and the need to focus on broad CHC abilities from cognitive ability tests. 


Recommended reading--available as open access here

Click here for prior relevant post about IQ scores being emergent property scores.  Click here for WJ V authors view’s on relevance of global IQ scores.  See recent McGrew et al. (2023) article for more information and discussion.