During World War I, due to the efforts of pyschologists led by Robert M. Yerkes,
the Army agreed to give IQ tests to recruits. Not surprisingly, the results showed that, on average,
members of various disadvantaged groups fared less well than did the native-born white population
of the U.S. Because the IQ tests supposedly tested innate ability rather than the effects of training,
the results reinforced general assumptions about the inferiority of a number of ethnic and racial minorities.
Stephen J. Gould, in the Mismeasure of Man (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1981, especially pp. 192-233), has demonstrated the shortcomings in the testing procedure and has shown how prevailing theoretical frameworks led to gross distortions of the numerical evidence.
Carl C. Brigham drew on the Army tests for his book, A Study of American Intelligence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1923). The following three illustrations appear in that book:
Excerpt from the Beta Test for Illiterate Recruits
Comparative IQs of Nativity Groups
Immigration and Declining IQ Scores
