arthur jensen

<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen</a>

Arthur Robert Jensen (August 24, 1923 – October 22, 2012) was a professor of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_psychology" title="Educational psychology">educational psychology</a> at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California,_Berkeley" title="University of California, Berkeley">University of California, Berkeley</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-obit-1">[1]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-biography-2">[2]</a> Jensen was known for his work in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychometrics" title="Psychometrics">psychometrics</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_psychology" title="Differential psychology">differential psychology</a>, which is concerned with how and why individuals differ behaviorally from one another.

He was a major proponent of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hereditarianism" title="Hereditarianism">hereditarian</a> position in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_and_nurture" class="mw-redirect" title="Nature and nurture">nature and nurture</a> debate, the position that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetics" title="Genetics">genetics</a> play a significant role in behavioral traits, such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence%28trait%29" class="mw-redirect" title="Intelligence (trait)">intelligence</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_psychology" title="Personality psychology">personality</a>. He was the author of over 400 scientific papers published in refereed journals<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-JensenCollectedWorks2015-3">[3]</a> and sat on the editorial boards of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_journals" class="mw-redirect" title="Scientific journals">scientific journals</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence%28journal%29" title="Intelligence (journal)">Intelligence</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_and_Individual_Differences" title="Personality and Individual Differences">Personality and Individual Differences</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-4">[4]</a>

He was rated as one of the 50 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-5">[5]</a> He was also a controversial figure, largely for his conclusions regarding the causes of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence" title="Race and intelligence">race-based differences in intelligence</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-6">[6]</a>

<h2>Contents</h2>

</div></div><div id="toc" class="toc"><ul><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#Early_life">1 Early life</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#IQ_and_academic_achievement">2 IQ and academic achievement</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#Death">3 Death</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#Criticism">4 Criticism</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#Jensen.27s_response_and_criticism">5 Jensen's response and criticism</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#Books">6 Books</a>

<ul><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-7"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#The_g_Factor">6.1 The g Factor</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-8"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#Clocking_the_Mind">6.2 Clocking the Mind</a></li></ul>

</li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-9"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#See_also">7 See also</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-10"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#References">8 References</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-11"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#Further_reading">9 Further reading</a>

<ul><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-12"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#Interviews">9.1 Interviews</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-13"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#Selected_articles.2C_books.2C_and_book_chapters">9.2 Selected articles, books, and book chapters</a></li></ul>

</li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-14"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#External_links">10 External links</a></li></ul>

</div>

<h2>Early life</h2>Jensen was born August 24, 1923, in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego" title="San Diego">San Diego</a>,

California, the son of Linda Mary (née Schachtmayer) and Arthur Alfred

Jensen, who operated and owned a lumber and building materials company.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-7">[7]</a> His paternal grandparents were Danish immigrants and his mother was of half <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland" title="History of the Jews in Poland">Polish Jewish</a> and half German descent.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-8">[8]</a> He studied at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California,_Berkeley" title="University of California, Berkeley">University of California, Berkeley</a> (B.A. 1945), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_State_College" class="mw-redirect" title="San Diego State College">San Diego State College</a> (M.A., 1952) and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_University" title="Columbia University">Columbia University</a> (Ph.D., 1956), and did his doctoral thesis with Percival Symonds on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thematic_Apperception_Test" class="mw-redirect" title="Thematic Apperception Test">Thematic Apperception Test</a>: He published this work. From 1956 through 1958, he did postdoctoral research at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_London" title="University of London">University of London</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Psychiatry" class="mw-redirect" title="Institute of Psychiatry">Institute of Psychiatry</a> with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Eysenck" title="Hans Eysenck">Hans Eysenck</a>.

Upon returning to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States" title="United States">United States</a>, he became a researcher and professor at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California" title="University of California">University of California</a>, Berkeley, where he focused on individual differences in learning, especially the influences of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture" title="Culture">culture</a>, development, and genetics on intelligence and learning. He received <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenure" class="mw-redirect" title="Tenure">tenure</a> at Berkeley in 1962 and was given his first <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbatical" title="Sabbatical">sabbatical</a>

in 1964. He concentrated much of his work on the learning difficulties

of culturally disadvantaged students. In 2003, he was awarded the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kistler_Prize" title="Kistler Prize">Kistler Prize</a> for original contributions to the understanding of the connection between the human <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genome" title="Genome">genome</a> and human <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society" title="Society">society</a>. In 2006, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Society_for_Intelligence_Research" title="International Society for Intelligence Research">International Society for Intelligence Research</a> awarded Jensen its Lifetime Achievement Award.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-9">[9]</a>

Jensen has had a lifelong interest in classical music and was, early in his life, attracted by the idea of becoming a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conducting" title="Conducting">conductor</a> himself. At 14, he conducted a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Band_%28music%29" class="mw-redirect" title="Band (music)">band</a> that won a nationwide <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition" title="Competition">contest</a> held in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco" title="San Francisco">San Francisco</a>. Later, he conducted orchestras and attended a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seminar" title="Seminar">seminar</a> given by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Sokoloff" title="Nikolai Sokoloff">Nikolai Sokoloff</a>. Soon after graduating from Berkeley, he moved to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City" title="New York City">New York</a>, mainly to be near the conductor <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arturo_Toscanini" title="Arturo Toscanini">Arturo Toscanini</a>. He was also deeply interested in the life and example of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi" class="mw-redirect" title="Gandhi">Gandhi</a>, producing an unpublished book-length manuscript on his life. During Jensen's period in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego" title="San Diego">San Diego</a> he spent time working as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_worker" class="mw-redirect" title="Social worker">social worker</a> with the San Diego Department of Public Welfare.

<h2>IQ and academic achievement</h2>Jensen's

interest in learning differences directed him to the extensive testing

of school children. The results led him to distinguish between two

separate types of learning ability. Level I, or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associative_learning" class="mw-redirect" title="Associative learning">associative learning</a>, may be defined as retention of input and rote memorization of simple facts and skills. Level II,

or conceptual learning, is roughly equivalent to the ability to

manipulate and transform inputs, that is, the ability to solve problems.

Later, Jensen was an important advocate in the mainstream acceptance of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_%28psychometrics%29" title="G factor (psychometrics)">general factor of intelligence</a>, a concept which was essentially synonymous with his Level II conceptual learning. The general factor, or g,

is an abstraction that stems from the observation that scores on all

forms of cognitive tests correlate positively with one another.

Jensen claimed, on the basis of his research, that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ" title="Heritability of IQ">general cognitive ability is essentially an inherited trait</a>,

determined predominantly by genetic factors rather than by

environmental conditions. He also contended that while associative

learning, or memorizing ability, is equally distributed among the races,

conceptual learning, or synthesizing ability, occurs with significantly

greater frequency in whites than in non-whites.

Jensen's most controversial work, published in February 1969 in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Educational_Review" title="Harvard Educational Review">Harvard Educational Review</a>, was titled "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Much_Can_We_Boost_IQ_and_Scholastic_Achievement%3F" title="How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?">How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?</a>" It concluded, among other things, that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_Start_%28education%29" class="mw-redirect" title="Head Start (education)">Head Start</a> programs designed to boost <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American" class="mw-redirect" title="African-American">African-American</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ" class="mw-redirect" title="IQ">IQ</a>

scores had failed, and that this was likely never to be remedied,

largely because, in Jensen's estimation, 80% of the variance in IQ in

the population studied was the result of genetic factors and the

remainder was due to environmental influences.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-High-10">[10]</a>

The work became one of—if not the most—cited papers in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History" title="History">history</a> of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_testing" title="Psychological testing">psychological testing</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychometrics" title="Psychometrics">intelligence research</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-11">[11]</a>

After the paper was released, students and faculty staged large protests outside Jensen's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California,_Berkeley" title="University of California, Berkeley">U.C. Berkeley</a> office. Jensen was denied reprints of his work by his <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publisher" class="mw-redirect" title="Publisher">publisher</a> and was not permitted to reply in response to letters of criticism—both extremely unusual policies for their day.

In a later article, Jensen argued that his claims had been misunderstood:

...nowhere have I "claimed" an "innate deficiency" of intelligence in

blacks. My position on this question is clearly spelled out in my most

recent book: "The plain fact is that at present there exists no

scientifically satisfactory explanation for the differences between the

IQ distributions in the black and white populations. The only genuine

consensus among well-informed scientists on this topic is that the cause

of the difference remains an open question." (Jensen, 1981a, p. 213).

</blockquote>

Although a critic of Jensen's thesis,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-12">[12]</a> economist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell" title="Thomas Sowell">Thomas Sowell</a>, criticizing the taboo against research on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence" title="Race and intelligence">race and intelligence</a>, wrote:

Professor Jensen pointed out back in 1969 that black children's IQ

scores rose by 8 to 10 points after he met with them informally in a

play room and then tested them again after they were more relaxed around

him. He did this because "I felt these children were really brighter

than their IQ would indicate." What a shame that others seem to have

less confidence in black children than Professor Jensen has had.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-13">[13]</a>

</blockquote>

However, Jensen's 1998 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_g_Factor:_The_Science_of_Mental_Ability" title="The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability">The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability</a>

gives his position suggesting a genetic component is implicated in the

white-black difference in IQ. In Chapter 12: Population Differences in g: Causal Hypotheses, Jensen writes:

The relationship of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_%28psychometrics%29" title="G factor (psychometrics)">g factor</a>

to a number of biological variables and its relationship to the size of

the white-black differences on various cognitive tests (i.e., <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearman%27s_hypothesis" title="Spearman's hypothesis">Spearman's hypothesis</a>) suggests that the average white-black difference in g has a biological component. Human races are viewed not as discrete, or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonism" title="Platonism">Platonic</a>,

categories, but rather as breeding populations that, as a result of

natural selection, have come to differ statistically in the relative

frequencies of many polymorphic genes. The genetic distances between

various populations form a continuous variable that can be measured in

terms of differences in gene frequencies. Racial populations differ in

many genetic characteristics, some of which, such as brain size, have

behavioral and psychometric correlates, particularly g.

</blockquote>

In 1994 he was one of 52 signatories on "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainstream_Science_on_Intelligence" title="Mainstream Science on Intelligence">Mainstream Science on Intelligence</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-gottfredson-14">[14]</a> " an editorial written by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Gottfredson" title="Linda Gottfredson">Linda Gottfredson</a> and published in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Journal" class="mw-redirect" title="Wall Street Journal">Wall Street Journal</a>,

which declared the consensus of the signing scholars on the meaning and

significance of IQ following the publication of the book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve" title="The Bell Curve">The Bell Curve</a>.

In 2005, Jensen's article, co-written with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.Philippe_Rushton" title="J. Philippe Rushton">J. Philippe Rushton</a>, named "Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability", was published in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Psychological_Association" title="American Psychological Association">APA</a> journal <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology,Public_Policy_and_Law" title="Psychology, Public Policy and Law">Psychology, Public Policy and Law</a>.

Jensen and Rushton present ten categories of evidence in support of the

notion that IQ differences between whites and blacks are partly genetic

in origin.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-30years-15">[15]</a>

<h2>Death</h2>He died on October 22, 2012 at his home in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelseyville,_California" title="Kelseyville, California">Kelseyville, California</a> at age 89.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-obit-1">[1]</a>

<h2>Criticism</h2><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvin_Konner" title="Melvin Konner">Melvin Konner</a> wrote in the notes to his book The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit:

Statements made by Arthur Jensen, William Shockley, and other

investigators in the late 1960s and early 1970s about race and IQ or

social class and IQ rapidly passed into currency in policy discussions.

Many of these statements were proved wrong, but they had already

influenced some policymakers, and that influence is very difficult to

recant.

</blockquote>

Many studies that purport to be both science-based and attempt to

influence public policy have been accused of scientific racism. Konner

wrote:

What of the latest currents of thought? Are they likely to lead to,

or at least encourage, further distortions of social policy? The

indications are not all encouraging. Richard Herrnstein and Charles

Murray published a book in 1994 clearly directed at policy, just as

Jensen and others had in the 1960s and 1970s. The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life

(New York: Free Press 1994) teamed a psychologist with a conservative

policy advocate to try to prove that both the class structure and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_segregation" title="Racial segregation">racial divide</a> in the United States result from genetically determined differences in intelligence and ability.

Their general assertions about genes and IQ were not very

controversial, but their speculations on race were something else again.

</blockquote>

By 1994, the time of The Bell Curve's publishing, Jensen had received $1.1 million from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Fund" title="Pioneer Fund">Pioneer Fund</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-16">[16]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-17">[17]</a> an organization frequently described as racist and "white supremacist" in nature.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-18">[18]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-19">[19]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-20">[20]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-21">[21]</a>

The fund contributed a total of $3.5 million to researchers cited in

The Bell Curve's most controversial chapter "that suggests some races

are naturally smarter than others" with Jensen's works being cited

twenty-three times in the book's bibliography.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-22">[22]</a>

Lisa Suzuki and Joshua Aronson of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_University" title="New York University">New York University</a>

claimed in 2005 that, unwaveringly for over 30 years, Jensen has

largely ignored evidence that fails to support his position that IQ test

score gaps represent a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetics" title="Genetics">genetic</a> racial hierarchy.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen#cite_note-23">[23]</a>

Paleontologist and evolutionary biologist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould" title="Stephen Jay Gould">Stephen Jay Gould</a> attacked Jensen's work in his 1981 book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man" title="The Mismeasure of Man">The Mismeasure of Man</a>. Gould writes that Jensen misapplies the concept of "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability" title="Heritability">heritability</a>", which is defined as a measure of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_diversity" title="Genetic diversity">variation</a> of a trait due to inheritance within a population (Gould 1981: 127; 156-157). According to Gould, Jensen uses heritability to measure differences between populations[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed">citation needed</a>]. Gould also disagrees with Jensen's belief that IQ tests measure a real variable, g, or "the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_factor" class="mw-redirect" title="General factor">general factor</a> common to a large number of cognitive abilities" which can be measured along a unilinear scale.

This is a claim most closely identified with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Spearman" title="Charles Spearman">Charles Spearman</a>. According to Gould, Jensen misunderstood the research of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.L.Thurstone" class="mw-redirect" title="L. L. Thurstone">L. L. Thurstone</a> to ultimately support this claim; Gould, however, argues that Thurstone's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_analysis" title="Factor analysis">factor analysis</a> of intelligence revealed g to be an illusion (1981: 159; 13-314). Gould criticizes Jensen's sources including his use of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharine_Cox" class="mw-redirect" title="Catharine Cox">Catharine Cox</a>'s 1926 Genetic Studies of Genius, which examines <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiometric" class="mw-redirect" title="Historiometric">historiometrically</a> the IQs of historic intellectuals after their deaths (Gould 1981: 153-154)....