Until his death in 1971, the British educational psychologist Sir Cyril Burt was viewed as one of the most significant and influential educational psychologists of his time. Within a year of his death, however, the legitimacy of his research was being questioned. The questions began to turn into accusations, and by 1976 he was officially accused of fabricating data to prove that intelligence was inherited. The publication of Burt's official biography by Leslie Hearnshaw in 1979 seemed to seal Burt's fate by concluding that the charges of fraud were merited. However, the recent work of two independent researchers, Robert Joynson and Ronald Fletcher, has reopened the issue and raised doubts about the accusations of fraud.
Does birth order affect intelligence:
In 1973 Lillian Belmont and Francis Marolla published family size, birth order and intelligence test (Dutch version of the Raven Progressive Matrices) data from nearly the entire population of 19 year-old Dutch men (386, 114 subjects). Their study design was complex, so interested readers should consult the primary source.
Social Intelligence:
Interpersonal intelligence is the ability to understand other people: what motivates them, how they work, how to work cooperatively with them. Successful salespeople, politicians, teachers, clinicians, and religious leaders are all likely to be individuals with high degrees of interpersonal intelligence. At the same time, social intelligence probably draws on specific internal (Gardner would say intrapersonal) abilities. For example, in a recent study of incompetence, Kruger and Dunning (1999) found that incompetent people assessed themselves as being highly competent. This lack of ability to self-assess may be due to a combination of internal (poor metacognition) and external factors (poor ability to compare oneself to others). Social intelligence appears to be receiving the most attention in the management and organizational psychology