Anne Anastasi
American psychologist and authority on psychological testing
American psychologist at Fordham University whose textbook Psychological Testing taught generations of students test construction and interpretation. She argued that a fully culturally unbiased test cannot be written and favoured tailoring tests to their culture.
Why this person matters
Anastasi urged psychologists to move past nature versus nurture and ask how heredity and environment interact. She became APA president in 1972, the third woman to hold the office, and received the National Medal of Science in 1987.
Main contributions
Psychological Testing
Her textbook explained popular tests and how to construct and interpret them. It was translated into many languages and is still in print.
Culture and testing
She held that a fully culturally unbiased test cannot be written. The best option, she argued, is to tailor a test to its target culture.
Heredity and environment
In her 1958 paper, Heredity, Environment and the Question 'How?', she urged psychologists to move past the nature versus nurture debate and to ask how heredity and environment interact.
Context and limits
Her argument about culture bears directly on the use of IQ tests across groups. The sources read record no specific criticisms of her own work. They disagree on when she left Barnard College, 1939 in one and 1946 in another, and they do not give the first edition year of her textbook.
In your introductory course
Thinking, language and intelligence.She appears in intelligence and methods chapters for test reliability, validity and the limits of cross-cultural testing.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 7.1. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1930
She received her PhD at Columbia University.
- 1947
She joined Fordham University, where she stayed to 1979.
- 1958
She published a paper urging the study of how heredity and environment interact.
- 1972
She was elected president of the American Psychological Association.
Source
- Psychology's Feminist Voices, Anne AnastasiArchive or museum. Institutional biography inspected.