No Two Alike (1963)

a group of children all of about the same age but their age is all thing they have in common some are active some are social some reserved some are already interested in girls and some are not as Emerson said nature never Rhymes her children nor makes two men alike but they differ not only in physical appearance or social behavior we all pride ourselves on our ability to judge people but can you pick out one among them who might be truly extraordinary no one could merely by looking at them but there are methods by which it is possible to make certain predictions about them and that is what is being attempted now [Music] I'm John darly psychology is the science that studies man's behavior and one important branch of psychology is the study and measurement of individual differences by means of psychological tests this is one of my fingerprints and these are other fingerprints none of them mine for over 80 years police all over the world have been collecting and comparing fingerprints and so far no two of them are alike some of the ways in which we differ from each other are as obvious as the differences in our fingerprints others are much less obvious and less easy to measure these are the ways we feel of about ourselves and others and the ways we think the manner and level of our thinking that determines what we are able to do these children are about to take a test which will select the most intelligent among them and those the exceptional ones will go into a special class where one aspect of their thinking their ability to think creatively will be studied this study is one of many being carried out at the University of Illinois where the head of the psychology department is Dr Lloyd Humphries as Dr Darley said these children are taking an intelligence test the first test of this type the first successful attempt to measure significant individual differences also involve children this was a test developed by Alfred Benet in 195 to determine which children were intelligent enough to benefit from education and which should not be required to go to school the first mass use of this type of test occurred in World War I when the Army Alpha was developed to screen recruits and to select the best candidates for officer training the greatest advance in psychological testing however occurred in World War II our greatest need immediately after Pearl Harbor was of course the selection and training of the best possible men to man The highly specialized jobs of pilot bombarder and Navigator we had plenty of men who wanted to fly and we had more men who had graduated from high school and college than any other country in the world but the Army Air Forces discovered this did not mean that they could all learn to fly when pilot candidates were unselected only about 25% were able to complete their training satisfactorily and qualify as [Music] Pilots what could be done psychologists were called in and asked to devise a series of tests that would predict more accurately whether or not a man could be trained as a pilot to be able to do this would save not only lives and time but millions of dollars as well since fewer air bases instructors and training planes will be required we began by studying typical intellectual and academic tests which were paper and pencil tests we also tried available apparatus tests however the first test tried couldn't do the job so after eliminating all but a few of them we began devising a new set of tests We Knew by now that intelligence alone at least academic intelligence wasn't enough to make a pilot well what did the way to find out was to analyze what a pilot had to do this would tell us what special qualities or aptitudes were required so some psychologists again going through pilot training themselves now one of the ways in which flying differs from most anything else man does is that it involves motion through three dimensions instead of two therefore spal orientation the ability to orient yourself in those three dimensions is important one apparatus test already in use that measured this ability to some extent and which we continued to find useful was the complex coordination test here the candidate sits before the stick and Rudder bar and responds appropriately to the changing patterns of lights on the panel in front of him this apparatus tested his reactions to complex cues and required coordinated movements of the controls however his ability to oring himself in space was critically dependent on his ability to interpret instrument readings that is to recognize the orientation of his plane from readings on the instrument panel this sounds obvious but in the early stages of our work we didn't realize how large individual differences in this ability were this immediately suggested a visual pictorial test in two parts that we call instrument comprehension in part one after an explanation of the purpose of the six instruments used in flying a plane the candidate was asked to pick out the correct description of what the plane was doing from a reading of the instruments a second part of the test showed only two instruments and by reading them the candidate had to pick the position the plane was in from the accompanying photographs this completely new test requiring no apparatus was found to have extremely high validity and became one of the most useful we devised another related test also of Great Value was the stick and Rudder orientation test here the candidate was given three successive photographs of the ground that seen from the cockpit of a plane during a simple maneuver and had to Mark the answer sheet to show the position of the stick and Rudder in making the maneuver these were only a few of the tests we developed for the entire battery consisted of more than 20 tests the results were extremely satisfactory as I have said when unselected candidates were allowed to enter pilot training only about 25% of them were graduated but at the end of only 9 months we had devised tests that revers these figures for when the group was selected for the test we had developed between 70 and 75% qualified as pilots in other words we had done exactly what the Air Force had asked us to do the great success of the specialized tests developed during World War II led to a tremendous growth in civilian use of these tests following the war some of these are useful in vocational guidance and counseling in the schools others are used in industrial Personnel work differential aptitude tests are a proven value in our society today we are still working however on the further development of intellectual tests which brings us back to these children here you see them taking a group intelligence test the LGE Thorndike based on their scores the top 10% of their age group are [Music] selected with such a group of high-scoring children we now want to investigate certain additional aspects of their intellectual Behavior we want to find ways of increasing and measuring creative or productive thinking in the classroom to reach this goal new teaching and measurement methods will be introduced as you will soon see conducting these studies here at the institute for research on exceptional children at the University of Illinois is Dr James Gallagher during the past decade many psychologists have become interested in other dimensions of intelligence Beyond those measured by standard instruments as the LGE thorn since some of these dimensions are related to creative abilities they are of particular interest to those of us who work in an educational setting we can Define intelligence in any one of a number of different ways one such definition could be that intelligence is the sum total of those mental processes which uh enable us to collect and store information and use the information to adapt to our environment any such definition is only as good as the tools that we use to measure it it is development of these new measuring instruments that broaden our view of the intellect classification system we use includes four major categories of thought processes that we've adopted from JP Guilford structure of intellect in addition we use a number of other categories which include uh teacher approval and disapproval that we're interested in this is a class in Social studies as you can see everything that goes on here is recorded on tape in addition observers take notes on the proceedings which are integrated into the final script we are interested in cataloging the flow of productive thought in classroom interchanges like this as a first step to improving educational procedures let's listen today I'd like to look at the Spanish Armada itself what was the Spanish Armada Scott a fleet of ships King philli sent out from Spain to declare war upon England that's right now the question that was just asked what was the Spanish Armada calls for one of the simplest of mental processes cognitive memory here the student only has to go to his Storehouse of facts and pick out the right answer let's see what others we get so you can see this was serious business Spain was going to invade England now why do you think king philli would take a step like this why was there conflict between Spain and England Becky well first of all there was a difference in religion between Spain and England and some english Pirates had robbed cargo off of some of the Spanish ships and Spain was mad about this and they were debating on who would get the upper hand to settle the new world this question called for convergent thinking an operation which involves the analysis and integration of uh given data because of the structure and the way in which the teacher presented the question only one right answer is possible now suppose for a moment that the Spanish Armada had not lost its battle in the English Channel suppose that Drake and the other English captains were off somewhere else with most of the fleet or the storm had never come up which dashed the remains of the Spanish Fleet on the sh what then do you think would have been the results Bob well um the whole of North America might have belonged to Spain uh Canada United States of Mexico might not have been divided and if we did fight a revolution with him we might have lost it that's certainly right any other ideas on this Dan well we might not have as much freedom of of religion as we have now and our political Freedom wouldn't be the same and we wouldn't be as strong a nation because at the moment Spain isn't a very strong Nation at all and if we were under their rule I doubt that we would be either all right that last question called for Divergent thinking a mental operation that seems uh related to creative abilities in this situation as you saw the student is free to produce unique and original ideas do you think we're better off today uh because England won this war and Spain lost May well I think I definitely think that we are better off than England won just look at uh the United States now it's so well off and I don't see what England could have done to support the United States better after all England had a lot of Natural Resources agricultural crops and Manufacturing Industries and also the English were um they wanted to settle in one place when the Spanish just wanted to own more parts of the North American continent that's right are there any other opinions Joan well I agree with May Spain was more interested in money and probably would have taken some of the resources back to Spain and I think a better a free choice of religion is better then I disagree both Spain and England had state religions and absolute monarchies and I think we would have become independent any way because all the South American countries that Spain had did and Spain was better situated for colonizing the West its colonies were anyway because it had South America for um supplying the Gulf Coast and Mexico for expansion along the Southwest Joan well if we hadn't run the revolution we might be under dictatorship now yes I think if we had lost a revolt against Spain this would be very likely this last question calls for eval of thinking which deals with dimensions of value in this situation the student must construct a dimension of goodness and then determine whether Spain or England most adequately fits that concept of goodness at the end of the classroom session the tape recordings are transcribed this tape script is given to one of our analysts who classifies the verbal performances according to the categories I've already mentioned by summing the performance of the students and teacher over five consecutive class sessions we can look at some consistent patterns of thought when the tape script has been analyzed and marked the results are entered on a flowchart which gives us a quick and graphic picture of what took place in the classroom here in a typical flowchart you can see how little divergent or evaluative thinking there was in comparison to the other thought processes only one or two responses here reflect productive as opposed to memory work naturally the spoken word is only one aspect of intellectual performance we've been using a number of experimental tests to measure their written productive ability in addition we give these students tests of attitude and personality and also collect information from their families in order to relate these factors to productive ability in the classroom one of these experimental tests consequences has been used in a number of research projects throughout the country this is administered as a written test but it for purpose of an illustration we will show you some students responding to it orally all right do you understand the test yes I'm supposed to tell you whatever I think of and as much as I think of and there aren't any right or wrong answers that's right anything that you think of that would answer the question is all right okay are you ready mhm all right let's go I'll record your answers all right tell me what do you think would happen if everyone lived to be 200 years old well they're always talking about the population explosion and I guess it'd be a lot worse we let's see well I don't know George Washington would just have died about 30 years ago the wor would be a lot more crowded and I imagine old age pensions would start about 100 years later uh there'd probably be uh just more of everything to accommodate the people because let's see I know they say we're increasing it well I don't know something like 28 million in this last decade and uh if everybody lived to be 200 years old we'd probably have a lot more people I don't know that anything else I can think about I guess that's all all right Tim what do you think would happen if it rained 6 months out of every year in Illinois well that's a hard question to answer I guess well maybe the sell of rain coats would go up but uh well I'm not really I guess it would all depend on what 6 months it rained as to crops if it rained if you sort of divided it up and put a little bit of rain in when it's usually dry and took away a little bit when it's usually wet it would probably be better for crops but if it all came at one time it could drown them and just sort of put the whole thing out I guess it was divided up and for a solid 6 months it just rained and then for a solid 6 months it was just hot Sunshine during that that it give us a probably more summer 6 months of hot weather and uh swimming pools be more popular I imagine well more popular longer and there'd be more sale of summer clothing and either kids would have a shorter school year or they' just have to go go to school during the summer that's about all I guess all right tell me what you think would happen if everyone were born with only three fingers and no thumb well I imagine first of all the shapes of all things that we hold pencils and pens and knives silverware anything like that it would be shaped differently for our use well it' be a lot harder to grasp things and in that way I'm imagine we wouldn't have advanced this far in manufacturing and different hand skilled crafts and uh let's see all handles would be built differently and well I don't know manicurist would have an easier time this boy showed a number of indications of superior ability on this test first he saw right away that uh all of the things that he would have to pick up would would be changed second he talks in terms of solutions as well as problems he talks about the handle that uh need needs to be modified 30 gives a wide variety of responses to the question and finally gives us some humor in terms of the response about the manicurist and humor seems to be related to productive thinking ability let's take a look at the same test taken by another student well if everyone lived to be 200 years old then there would be no real young people I mean the population would be too awful and there'd be too many people in the world and food and water would be a great problem but the older people could help the younger people remember some of the things that their grandmothers taught them and they know more than they ever had because they can't write everything down and the family secrets can be passed on and then more people could um learn about the secrets for Rockets and missiles and they could go to other planets and inhabit them and they would have no fear of people dying off if they had to live to be 200 and there'd be an awful unemployment because um there wouldn't be as many jobs and um there'd be more people to do them so there wouldn't be as many jobs available and they could probably think of a lot more things to do but that still would make up for it what do you think would happen if everyone were born with only three fingers and no thumb well that'd be awful because um they couldn't Gras things with their hands because the thumb really has an importance and um they'd have to limit the weight to the things they lift and they could not lift their own weight like some people do and um when they write um it's not going to be too good at all and lots of instruments won't be able to be played won't be bands and orchestras and a lot of jobs will have to be eliminated this girl gave some perfectly respectable answers to the test but they're not quite the same quality as that of the boy she was a little more specific in her responses she talked about problems rather than Solutions and she didn't have as wide a variety of responses as the boy on our scores of flexibility and fluency uh the boy would probably come out a little bit better our research seem to point to the fact uh that many people have felt before but have not documented and that is that the teacher is the key to the initiation and stimulation of productive thinking in the classroom let us go back to the teacher and watch him build to a Divergent thinking sequence concerning Trends towards nationalism now we've looked at the National Power structure that existed when colonial America emerged let's look at the present situation now what would you say are the leading world powers today Dave I would think that the United States and Soviet Russia would be and why has the center of power started to shift away from the western part of Europe today because there are a lot of resources Within These boundaries to be developed but Western Europe is loaded with resources is this the only reason well Western Europe is divided up into uh many countries and these have to share all their resources and they're Feud sometimes they can't uh get together to develop them all right then they're trying to solve this problem with the common market today do you have anything to add Greg well yes modern Communications and transportation will let um other countries develop a high standard of living too so you might say the colonial Powers were victims of their own policy now what changes in this old world of ours would you foresee if this trend towards nationalism continues Alan well um there will be more independent countries and they will be take a bigger part in the UN and the freedom of other countries and Russia will have more satellites and communist countries under its control does the older system of colonialism give the underdeveloped peoples of the world more opportunity Allan well it would give them a better start and after a while they wouldn't want another country ruling over them I agree I think that um a country would not like someone overseas to be ruining because they would think that they wouldn't know what was happening right then and know what to do about it as we have seen unless the teacher asks for certain kinds of thinking operations and deliberately encourages them they rarely occur in the classroom this seems to be particularly true of Divergent thinking this is a graph of a social studies class which shows the percentage of Divergent thinking produced by the teachers and the students over five class sessions as you can see there's a close relationship between the performance of the teacher and the pupils as a teacher is reasonably high in uh Divergent thinking the pupil's production is high as the teacher production drops so does the students particularly here you see the teacher has increased in Divergent thinking in his third class session and you can see how High the percentage of Divergent thinking was in the students when the teacher dropped down again in the Divergent production you can see that the students are down here at a low level now this is the kind of analysis through which we hope to find out what kinds of teacher Behavior actually stimulate various kinds of productive thinking in the part of the student now for many years we've had football coaches filming their games in order to analyze more precisely what happened afterwards this is essentially the same kind of thing that we are trying to do with our tape recordings in the classroom the goal of the psychologist in this situation is to divise measuring instruments like the classification system and the consequences test so that we can be able to First describe productive thinking second be able to predict who's going to be productive and who isn't and finally to modify the educational environment in such a way so that we can produce more effective productive thinking in the classroom [Music] hundreds of children and all of them quite different from one another which among them will have the special abilities that will enable them to paint a great picture or compose a symphony or discover a cure for a dread disease or design a spacecraft that will carry man to a far planet and Back Again One branch of psychology is devoted to studies that may tell us that someday studies that may help not only to recognize but to Foster intellectual qualities that in the past have developed more or less at random and these same studies May provide us with techniques that will enable us to educate and to raise the intellectual level of all children everywhere this is a frontier of psychology the study of individual differences oh a [Applause] [Music] next week focus on Behavior explores social psychology what is the power of the group over the individual the subject The Social Animal this is NE National educational television