Alfred Binet

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Lore & Background

Alfred Binet was born Alfredo Binetti in Nice, then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia until its annexation by the Second French Empire in 1860. He attended law school in Paris, receiving his degree in 1878, and also studied physiology at the Sorbonne. His first formal position was as a researcher at a neurological clinic, Salpêtrière Hospital, in Paris from 1883 to 1889. There he worked under Jean-Martin Charcot, experimenting with hypnotism and publishing four articles on the subject. Binet aggressively supported Charcot's position that people with weakened nervous systems were susceptible to hypnosis, but after scrutiny by Joseph Delboeuf, Binet made an embarrassing public admission that he had been wrong. He resigned from La Salpêtrière in 1890 and never mentioned the place or its director again. Binet turned to the study of child development, spurred on by the birth of his daughters Marguerite (born 1885) and Alice (born 1887). He called Alice a subjectivist and Marguerite an objectivist, developing concepts of introspection and externospection. In 1891 he began working at the Laboratory of Physiological Psychology at the Sorbonne, working for a year without pay. By 1894 he took over as director, a position he held until his death. During this time he also co-founded the French journal of psychology, L'Année Psychologique, serving as director and editor-in-chief. He worked with Victor Henri on the effects of intellectual fatigue on metabolism. In 1899, Binet was asked to be a member of the Free Society for the Psychological Study of the Child. The Society opposed psychiatrist Désiré-Magloire Bourneville's push to send children with learning difficulties to asylum boarding schools. Binet and the society argued that objective criteria should be used to decide placement, so that no child would get the label erroneously. Binet was greatly helped by Théodore Simon, a young psychiatrist working in an asylum for children with intellectual deficiency. Together they developed a preliminary version of their intelligence test in 1905, a full version with age-appropriate standards in 1908, and a modest revision in 1911, shortly before Binet's death.

Reader's Guide

Alfred Binet's most enduring contribution is the Binet–Simon Intelligence Test, the first practical intelligence test. It was born from a 1904 commission by the French Ministry of Education to decide how to handle school children with learning difficulties. Psychiatrist Désiré-Magloire Bourneville argued that a psychiatrist should decide placement based on a medical examination, while Binet and Simon wanted objective evidence. This debate directly led to the creation of the test. The Binet–Simon scale consisted of thirty tasks of increasing difficulty. The easiest tasks included following a beam of light or talking back to the examiner. Slightly harder tasks required pointing to named body parts, repeating 2 digits, repeating simple sentences, and defining words like house, fork or mama. More difficult items asked children to state differences between pairs, reproduce drawings from memory, or construct sentences from three given words such as 'Paris, river and fortune.' The hardest tasks included repeating 7 random digits, finding three rhymes for the French word 'obéissance,' and answering questions like 'My neighbor has been receiving strange visitors. He has received in turn a doctor, a lawyer, and then a priest. What is taking place?'

For practical use, the score revealed the child's mental age. For example, a 6-year-old who passed all the tasks typical for that age would have a mental age of 6. Binet's insistence on objective criteria helped prevent mislabeling of children, a concern that remains relevant today. His work also influenced Jean Piaget, who later studied with Binet's collaborator Théodore Simon in 1920.

Did You Know?

• Alfred Binet was born Alfredo Binetti in Nice, which was then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
• Binet studied law in Paris and received his degree in 1878, and also studied physiology at the Sorbonne.
• After a public admission of error regarding his work on hypnotism, Binet resigned from La Salpêtrière in 1890 and never mentioned the place or its director again.
• Binet co-founded the first French scientific journal of psychology, L'Année Psychologique, and served as its director and editor-in-chief.
• The hardest item on the Binet–Simon scale asked children to repeat back 7 random digits and find three rhymes for the French word 'obéissance'.