Charles Spearman Accomplishments

Charles Spearman is undoubtedly a prominent figure in the history of science, especially in terms of introducing statistical methods to psychology (Deary, Lawn & Bartholomew, 2008), but also because of his impact on intelligence theories. This might be the reason why, unlike any other theorists of his time, his citation rates did not drop after his death, but actually are still increasing showing his undeniable contribution to the most recent scientific disputes (Jensen, 2000).

Spearman was born on 10th September 1863 in London, and died on 17 September 1945. His death rose quite a controversy, as he fell from the window of the London Hospital. It was allegedly his own decision, and as commented by Raymond Cattel – most probably a rational
As one of the founders of the English School of psychology, he worked until retirement at the University College in London (UCL), and he was widely recognized persona at his times. Although these accomplishments are astonishing, the road to success was not easy and Spearman himself used to call it 'one long fight' (Jensen, 2000). He entered psychological discipline in his mid 30's and received his gradate training under supervision of Wilhelm Wundt at the University of Liepzig. Although his studies were interrupted by 2 years of army service, he managed to complete his PhD in 1907 and during the course of his studies he published two groundbreaking papers. None of them was related to his doctoral research, neither was in lines with his supervisors' interests. The former referred to reliability and latent trait theory, and the latter discussed factor analysis and theory of general
He examined the correlations between and within the sets of data and his interpretation of results is that any intellectual effort requires engagement and combination of these factors – a general ability to understand and perform a task, and a specific ability related to the characteristics of the task itself. Spearman used an energy metaphor in describing features of 'g', where he compares general intelligence to the concept of power. Like power, general intelligence (the mind power) is defined by energy divided by time (Deary, Lawn & Bartholomew, 2008). However, further research shows that predictive importance of 'g' is higher when we analyse samples with lower IQ thus we could conclude then, that in fact “there is no general intelligence, only general lack of it” (Mackintosh, 2011, pp.