Letters
Sex and intelligence
RICHARD Lynn (‘Sex differences in IQ’, Letters, August 2005)
contends that men are more intelligent than women, and that my
contention that males have a stronger drive to ‘systemise’ is support
for his position. (For some reason, Lynn misquotes this as a males
having a stronger ability in ‘synthesising’, which of course is
something completely different. I can only assume this is a typo).
Systemising is the drive to analyse a system (any kind of system, be it
mechanical, natural or abstract) into input–operation–output relations.
Maths is of course the prime example of systemising, and it is well
known that far more males than females are attracted to work in maths,
at higher levels. The same marked sex ratio biased towards males is
seen in physics, engineering and computer science, all disciplines that
require strong systemising skills.
But in my book The Essential Difference I discuss the issue that
measures of systemising conflate ‘interest’ and ‘ability’, and at
present it is hard to disentangle the two. That is, it may be that all
we are observing is a stronger interest to systemise among males, and
that it is the interest that then drives the individual’s ability
levels.
Second, my talented PhD student Jac Billington has recently looked at
the correlations between systemising (as measured on a questionnaire
called the Systemizing Quotient (SQ)) and an IQ test (the Raven’s
Progressive Matrices). She finds that the two are uncorrelated. She
confirmed the established sex difference on the SQ (males scoring
higher than females) but did not find men scored higher on the IQ test.
In fact, women scored higher than men on Raven’s IQ test.
All this points to the following conclusions: that Lynn is wrong to
assume that systemising and IQ are one and the same thing; and that a
stronger drive in males to systemise does not mean males are more
intelligent overall.
I wish Lynn had read the relevant section of my book, which I quote here:
Overall intelligence is not better in one sex or the other, but the
profiles (reflecting relative strength in specific domains) are
different between the two sexes. I am investigating the claim that
women are better at empathizing and men are better at systemizing, but
this does not mean that one sex is more intelligent overall. (p.10)
Simon Baron-Cohen
Cambridge University
I FOUND the content of Richard Lynn’s letter strangely outdated. I
thought everyone was aware that it is not the size but the density of
the brain that is relevant. (Women have generally a denser and more
‘connected’ brain, while men are usually thought to have fewer
cross-brain connections and activity.)
The plasticity of the brain suggests, however, that a lot of the
difference in IQ scores is cultural, and certainly the content of IQ
tests generally favour white men men over other groups, which probably
reflects what this group has historically thought important. But it is
interesting, however, that girls are scored more harshly than boys on
IQ tests at age c.11 years because girls otherwise would en masse do
better than them.
Finally, I hardly think asking people to rate their parents’
intelligence is helpful given the cultural norms and sexual biases of
our age. In any case, I think most of us would take one look at the
world and realise that whatever men have more of it doesn’t appear to
be what most of us would call intelligence. Perhaps all of this just
suggests how outdated IQ testing really is.
Jennifer Poole
48 Winchester Road
Romsey
Hampshire
A conflict of interest
I WOULD be grateful for members’ opinions on a matter of ethics and
professional behaviour that has come to my notice and bothers me.
Recently I have noticed some psychologists doing detailed medico-legal
reports that recommend hours of private therapy, even stipulating the
likely fees. Then I have found cases in which these psychologists have
gone on to do the work themselves.
I have asked some lawyers and colleagues who agree that this represents
a conflict of interest. If one is assessing and recommending private
work, one is generating a well-paid job. It then seems inappropriate to
do it oneself. There may be temptation, such as the client begging one
to do it, the difficulty of finding competent others in the area, etc.
However it seems to be unprofessional and unethical. One cannot be
unbiased about the sort of therapy, length of therapy, or indeed
whether it was even necessary, if one has proposed it.
Is this a subject worthy of a statement in The Psychologist to guide members in their behaviour in this area?
Margaret Ballard
30 Paradise Walk
London SW3
Editor’s note: I have forwarded this for consideration as a topic for a future ‘Ethics column’ in The Psychologist.
Addressing the parenting paradox
WE read with interest Lisa Woolfson`s article (‘Disability and the
parenting paradox’, July 2005) as we have recently completed a study
which was a replication and extension of the Chavira et al. (2000)
study on a UK population, using quantitative methods. This study also
raised the paradox that in reducing the degree to which parents
attribute responsibility, in order to reduce levels of anger, there
might also be an effect of reducing the expectation that children may
be able to make positive changes. The literature offers two different
approaches to addressing this issue.
Weiner (1995) differentiates between responsibility and controllability. Controllability
is an attribution made regarding the degree to which an action is under
a person’s control; responsibility is a moral judgement that arises
after a controllable judgement has been made and been subject to the
consideration of possible ‘mitigating factors’. It might be possible to
use mitigating factors, perhaps building a social model of disability
for the parent in considering their child’s behaviour, that would lead
to a reduction in judgements of responsibility but maintain a judgement
of control.
An alternative model is offered by Brickman et al. (1982), who consider
the judgement of responsibility as an attribution but who distinguish
responsibility for the development of a problem from responsibility for
the solution. This may also provide a useful way of working with
parents or carers for children with severe learning disabilities and
communication impairments.
Using the Brickman et al. model it is possible to suggest to parents or
carers that behaviours such as aggression produce a response that meets
a need for the child, which, given their difficulties, they have no
other means of communicating. This reframes the behaviour as resulting
from an interaction between the child and the environment, and
therefore sees the child as not being solely responsible for the
development of the behaviour. However, it is then possible to work with
parents and carers to explore how a child can then, over time, be
helped to develop alternative means of communicating the same need,
thus seeing the child as having some responsibility, and an active
role, in the solution.
We would be interested in other people’s view of these ideas.
Heather Armstrong
Vale of Aylesbury Primary Care Trust
Dave Dagnan
North Cumbria Mental Health and Learning Disabilities NHS Trust
References
Brickman, P., Rabinowitz, V.C., Karuza, J. Jr et al. (1982). Models of helping and coping. American Psychologist, 37, 368–384.
Chavira, V., Lopez, S.R., Blacher, J. & Shapiro, J. (2000). Latina
mothers’ attributions, emotions and reactions to the problem behaviour
of their children with developmental disabilities. Journal of Child
Psychology and Psychiatry, 41, 245–252.
Weiner, B. (1995). Judgements of responsibility. New York: Guilford Press.
Models of terrorism
I NOTICE the Society’s response to the London bombings published in
the August issue refers readers to several articles of potential
relevance. Alas, all these pieces implicitly accept the model of
terrorism in which ‘we’ are the victims of terrorist acts perpetrated
by individuals whose psychological ‘motives’ we are charged to
understand. Regrettably, no mention was made either of Phil Banyard’s
letter (November 2004) or my own and Anthony Esgate’s (February 2005)
in which we situate terrorism within the wider political context.
For example, the standard definition of terrorism (adopted by all the
major security agencies) sees it as ‘the use or threatened use of
violence against civilian populations in order to achieve economic or
political aims’. Using this definition enables us to see
US and UK actions over many years (including the current actions in
Iraq) as having been responsible for killing enormous numbers of
civilians of other nations in order to achieve political and economic
aims. These numbers dwarf those which have resulted from the actions of
‘individual’ terrorists. Thus if we are really interested in terrorism
(and in resolving it) we could choose to view the current terrorism
directed against the UK as one of the consequences of UK and US state
terrorism; we would learn much more about the phenomenon by studying
why our political leaders so willingly endorse its use. The US,
incidentally, is the only country to have been found guilty by the
international courts of perpetrating state terrorism, through its
support for terrorist attacks against the people of Nicaragua.
The views of the majority of the UK population in believing that the
London attacks are related to the war in Iraq, and that the risk of
further attacks has been elevated by the Iraq war, are consistent with
this wider notion of terrorism. Sadly the BPS appears to take the
narrow view endorsed by the British government which places our
country’s terrorist actions firmly outside the zone of responsibility
for why others would wish to attack us. Any psychological perspective
on terrorism which ignores Anglo-American state terrorism is simply not
worthy of serious consideration. Again I ask whose interests are being
served by this subservience to elite interests?
Ron Roberts
Kingston University
Surrey
Monitoring continued professional development
I HAVE I attended one of the ‘roll out’ sessions for the Society’s
continuing professional development scheme. It is worryingly bad.
I am very much in favour of CPD for psychologists with the aim of
maintaining – in some cases establishing – the highest professional
standards, but the scheme being imposed on the Society is unlikely to
achieve this aim.
In order to acquire a practising certificate, I will need to submit a
satisfactory CPD log. That sounds reasonable, but there is no clear
indication in the scheme about who will decide that an individual’s CPD
is satisfactory or what criteria will be used. We were told some logs
might be evaluated ‘in office’. Others will be evaluated by someone
from the same Division as the applicant. Applicants that choose not to
belong to a Division will have to nominate the Division that most
matches their work.
Not surprisingly, the establishment of Divisions, which many of us
opposed, has proved divisive. Is it really believed that no clinical
psychologist would be capable of evaluating the CPD log of an
educational psychologist? Or is the Society intending to use academics
with limited practice experience to assess CPD submissions; presumably
on the basis of compliance with any current trends they may wish to
foster?
There is nothing in the plan to say how evaluators of CPD will be
selected, what criteria they will apply and, importantly, how the
inevitable disputes will be resolved. The scheme seems lack any
standard for evaluators and any appeal process.
Brian Osman
Langham Road
Boxted
Colchester
Tony Cassidy, Chair of the Standing Committee for Continuing
Professional Development, replies: The CPD monitoring system will
consist of two stages. Firstly, every CPD submission will be checked in
the BPS office to ensure it contains all the information set out in the
requirements (see www.bps.org.uk/cpd in the members’ area). Secondly, a
5 per cent sample will be randomly selected for qualitative assessment
by Divisional CPD assessors. During the consultation process, a large
majority were in favour of evaluation by experienced practising
psychologists, preferably from a similar or related area of work to
that of the person submitting the CPD log. Using the existing
Divisional structure was clearly the most appropriate way of achieving
this. Lead CPD assessors will help ensure consistency within and across
Divisions by auditing decisions made by assessors in their Divisions
and meeting at least quarterly to moderate Divisional CPD assessments.
Consultation on the question of who should assess the logs of those not
currently Divisional members resulted in various suggestions, including
the use of Branch members. Discussions with the Branches Forum
highlighted practical difficulties in matching CPD submissions with
appropriate assessors. It was therefore agreed that during the first
year of operation, chartered psychologists who are not members of a
Division would be asked to nominate a Division for monitoring purposes
(i.e. the Division to which they feel their work most closely relates).
This was on the understanding that the monitoring processes will be
reviewed in the light of experience gained in that first operational
year, during which no sanctions will be applied.
There is no intention to limit CPD assessors to members working in
academia. We expect applications will be received from members covering
widely different areas of practice. The selection process for assessors
will be undertaken by the Divisions, based on the criteria set out in
the job specifications (now available from the Society’s office).
CPD assessments are likely to ask: Are the development needs identified appropriate
to the role? Are the activities appropriate in addressing the
development needs identified? Does the CPD log indicate an ongoing
process of reflective evaluation?
Detailed criteria for qualitative assessment have
not yet been published. This year will be used as a further
developmental stage with the information gained from the first sets of
assessment helping to inform the breadth and depth of criteria
required. Findings from the 2003 pilot study led to the recommendation
to proceed with a developmental approach rather than be tightly
prescriptive in the first instance, the aim being to introduce a
realistic set of criteria appropriate across the Society.
Any member who disputes a CPD assessment decision will have the right
of appeal under the Society’s appeals process, which is designed to be
equitable and transparent and has been developed to enable processing
of appeals against decisions in respect of all areas of membership and
qualifications.
LET’S DEBUNK SOME MYTHS
A REPUTABLE psychological body like the BPS could use part of its
website to publicly debunk psychological myths that are damaging many
people’s lives – we could list dozens. There are several such sites
already, but they can be as suspect as what they claim to explode.
Valerie Yule
57 Waimarie Drive
Mount Waverley
Victoria
Australia
Editor’s comment: That could indeed be interesting for the Society or
The Psychologist. On a similar note, although perhaps more internal to
psychology,
I have been considering a ‘Bad psychology’ column not unlike the ‘Bad
science’ column in The Guardian’s Science section. It would flag up
research that, due to poor hypothesising, shoddy methods or unwise
interpretation of results, fails to inform our understanding or even
misleads. Of course, researchers would have the opportunity to respond.
What do readers think?
Free range ethics?
I AM sure I wasn’t the only chicken to have my feathers ruffled when
reading Sarah Lee’s ‘Reason and the yuck factor’ (August, 2005).
My mother hen taught me from an early age that I had nothing to fear from humans
as she said they had evolved a very sound ethical system based on the
study and transmission of sacred texts. She said that practices such as
necrophilia and bestiality were banned in advanced human societies, and
that all human beings knew about this.
Imagine my horrified clucks, then, when I read that all ethical
thinking had suddenly been reduced to the maxim that anything is OK as
long as it doesn’t harm any ‘sentient’ being. Anything above and beyond
this was described as an emotional ‘yuck’ factor. Thus readers were led
to think that their disgust at reading the opening ‘sex with the dead
chicken’ scenario was not up to the ethical standards of the so-called
moral philosophers.
I can’t squawk too loudly about this, because I know that if being
shown a religious taboo-breaking scenario causes someone emotional
anguish, this is because they understand the basic concepts of human
dignity which atheistic philosophers fail to grasp. Harm to sentient
beings plays only one part. Failing to show respect and reverence for
existence itself is far more serious. The thought of a man being
reduced to having sex with a dead bird not only invokes physical
repulsion it also somehow breaks one’s heart and pierces the soul.
Unlike we birds with our pea-brains, you humans have evolved to be
deeply ethical creatures. You don’t just think it’s wrong to have sex
with a dead chicken, you know it is wrong. This is much more than an
instinctive biological ‘yuck’; it’s a deeply existential reaction that
you have learnt through the cultural transmission of religious
teachings through thousands of years.
I have no wish to peck at Ms Lee as I know she meant no harm, and she
has a right to produce evidence as she finds it. However, because the
article fails to mention the possibility of an ethic of human dignity,
it is possible to come to the conclusion on reading it that bestiality
and necrophilia are perfectly acceptable activities.
Diana ‘La Poule’ Barker
La Maison Solaire
8 Route de Pietat
64110 Uzos
France
Information
- I AM a 32-year-old primary teacher with a degree in social
psychology. I am seeking to reawaken my long-standing interest in child
psychology with a view to a possible career change in the future. Thus
I would be grateful of any voluntary work experience in the
Dorset/Bournemouth area. Rebecca BrowneE-mail [email protected]
- I RECENTLY graduated with a ‘Graduate Diploma in Psychology’ with GBR
status. I am 35 years of age and have several years’ experience in
working with adults with mental health problems in a variety of
settings. I am due to start an MSc health psychology in September and
would very much like to volunteer on a part-time basis in the area of
health psychology. I am particularly interested in eating disorders,
chronic pain clinical work and ME. I am based in northwest London.
Please contact me if you are able to assist with opportunities.
Julie Cohn
E-mail: [email protected]; tel: 020 8203 7028
- I AM a psychology graduate with an upper second class honours degree.
I am searching for voluntary work experience or research experience in
clinical psychology, particularly in the West Midlands. I have full CRB
clearance. My dissertation was on attitudes to schizophrenia and
whether there are sex differences in the relationship between causal
beliefs and attitudes towards schizophrenia, I have voluntary work
experience in a special school.
Louise Eccleston
E-mail [email protected]
- I AM clearing my shelves of loads of books; if anyone is
interested in taking any away please e-mail me for a list. They range
in dates from the 1960s to 1990s. The more recent textbooks could still
be of use for introductory courses, the earlier ones may be of interest
from a historical or theoretical point of view. You’ll need to get to
west London to pick them up though.Jonathan Smith
E-mail: [email protected]
- I AM a psychology graduate with an upper second class honours degree.
I am searching for voluntary work experience (full- or part-time) in
counselling psychology, preferably in the West Midlands. I hold an
enhanced disclosure (due to be renewed). I wish to study for a master’s
in counselling psychology in September 2007 and would like practical
experience to help build my knowledge.
Sadie Howell
E-mail: [email protected]; tel:01299 822632, 0773 282 0930
- I AM looking for a training course on mediation that focuses on young
people and their families, with an aim to try to avoid the young person
becoming homeless. Does anyone know a good one in the London area? My
background is in youth and community work and I currently work in a
youth offending team.
Michael O’Sullivan
Tel: 020 8901 4455; e-mail: [email protected]
You can also use the forum at www.thepsychologist.org.uk to seek work experience and information.
Emotion theories and signalling
I REFER to Tony Manstead’s article ‘The social dimension of emotion’
(August 2005) and its references to theories of emotion and to facial
expressions. I wish to draw attention to one theory of emotion and
emotional behaviour which I believe, from a review of theorising about
emotion from the 19th century to the present (Salzen, 2001), is
distinctive in that it says that emotional behaviours are the social
signals of social needs and satisfactions. This is the ‘thwarted action
state signalling’ (TASS) theory of emotion (Salzen, 1991) that is based
on the ethological analysis of vertebrate agonistic and courtship
social displays.
This analysis shows that such displays can be understood as the
intention movements of aroused activities that are blocked (thwarted)
either by the lack of the adequate stimulus situation or by ambivalent
stimulation giving conflicting action states. This aroused but thwarted
state is the state of emotion while the thwarted intention movements
and postures and the associated perceptible autonomic states constitute
emotional behaviours that convey the nature of the aroused motivations
and their desired behaviours to a social partner.
In the course of evolution social partners have come to respond to
these displays in ways that bring about the required adequate
stimulation or remove the ambivalence and so allow performance of the
aroused activities. The switch in behaviour from the display to the
consummatory behaviour has also evolved into special relaxation
displays (e.g. smiling and laughter) that signal that the social
partner’s helping behaviour has been successful and can cease, so
reinforcing the probability of its recurrence on future occasions (i.e.
it is rewarding).
I have previously given a full analysis of human facial expressions of
emotion in terms of such intention movements (Salzen, 1981) and this
analysis pre-dates by
a decade the reference to Fridlund’s treatment of facial displays as communicating intentions.
In short the TASS theory of emotion provides a solid foundation for the
social dimension of emotion in that it shows that emotional displays
are emitted (and indeed in evolutionary terms may be said to be
designed) primarily to affect the social partner. Only secondarily have
they come also to affect the emitter through self-perception of these
displays and their associated internal perceptions – contrary to most
emotion theories, which make the experience of the internal emotional
state as primary to the concept. This secondary self-perception of
emotional behaviours and states has, of course, important consequences
in terms of self-awareness and self-control and I have considered these
elsewhere (Salzen, 1998). The papers to which I have referred may not
be easily available and anyone interested in emotion who would like
copies of these and related papers should contact me.
Eric A. Salzen
Psychology Department
King’s College
Aberdeen University
References
Salzen, E.A. (1981). Perception of emotion in faces. In G. Davies, H.
Ellis & J. Shepherd (Eds.) Perceiving and remembering faces
(pp.133–169). London: Academic Press.
Salzen, E.A. (1991). On the nature of emotion. International Journal of Comparative Psychology, 5, 47–88.
Salzen, E.A. (1998). Emotion and self-awareness. Applied Animal Science, 57, 299–313.
Salzen, E.A. (2001). A century of emotion theories – Proliferation
without progress? History and Philosophy of Psychology, 3, 56–75.
Henry Ferguson 1906-2004
HENRY Hall Ferguson died in October 2004 on the eve of his 98th birthday. I owe
a deep debt of gratitude to him as his student for the way in which he
contrived, as Head of the School of Psychology at the University of St
Andrews within the Department of Philosophy, to pioneer the scientific
use of psychological measurement. The knowledge now embodied in the
Level A and Level B Certificates of the British Psychological Society
was substantially covered in his lectures on scientific method, which
were boring but comprehensive and sound.
They were complemented by Psychology Practicals in which his students
tested each other in pairs on a wide variety of tests. His notes were
still relevant and useful 50 years later.
Apart from this significant contribution, his talents were
underestimated. He was colour-blind, accident-prone and had a stammer,
which made his sceptical students suspect that his study of psychology
was a voyage of self-discovery. He expressed himself best on paper, and
was the author of two books and several journal articles in the 1930s.
But at St Andrews he had arrived and was content.
Henry Ferguson was a pupil of the eminent psychologist George Frederick
Stout, and gained an MA with first class honours in philosophy in 1928.
But he identified with psychology and joined the BPS in 1932, and
became a Fellow of the Society in 1943.
Around 1930 he emigrated to Otago in the South Island
of New Zealand where he lectured on psychology and philosophy, reaching
associate professor status by 1939. He arrived in St Andrews in 1947
and held the position as Head of the School of Psychology for 24 years
until he retired in 1971, thereby preserving the Stout legacy that
psychology
is really a part of philosophy.
David C. Duncan
Social Audit Services
74 Park Avenue
Ruislip
(Please note that some pictures may have been removed for copyright reasons)
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