Ferreira Alves wrote:
> Dear Paul Brandon, Michael Silvester and all colleagues
>
> I am agree with Michael when he asserts that psycometrics assumes deficits
> instead differences.
>
> And for me this is a major issue in interpreting or when we give to someone
> information based on psychometrics. Even if the great majority of person who
> work within a psychometric view do not point deficits to individuals, the social
> interpretation, the social consctruction of those data is mainly in that sense
> of deficit. What is missing probably to most psychometricians is an awereness
> that when they do psychometrics they are doing and practising a particular view
> of human being. This view could be summarized in this way: "personal,
> intelectual, or afective caracterisitcs of individuals exist in some quantity;
> then some individuals are more able, others are more unable in certain traits".
> This view could be not sensible to the views of most psychometricians. But I
> tend to believe that it is in this sense that it is constructed.
It's an interesting point, but I still do not understand the deficit part.
With IQ, we usually think of deficit only with you are below average. In the
case of very low IQs (e.g. Down's syndrome children) it is natural thinking of
deficit because their intellectual processes are not working in the usual
manner ("usual" = when all chromosomes are in place). But with IQs above 140,
as was the case with Terman's "termites", we view them as having extra
horsepower. We usually don't think of those in the "middle" (within a SD) as
being deficient.
--
* John W. Kulig, Department of Psychology ************************
* Plymouth State College Plymouth NH 03264 *
* [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://oz.plymouth.edu/~kulig *
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* "Eat bread and salt and speak the truth" Russian proverb *
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