Louis Thurstone
American psychometrician and factor analyst
American psychometrician who developed multiple factor analysis, a model of seven primary mental abilities, the law of comparative judgment and an attitude scale. He helped found the journal Psychometrika and the Psychometric Society.
Why this person matters
Thurstone argued against a single general intelligence factor and proposed several independent primary mental abilities. His scaling methods made attitudes and judgements measurable. With E. L. Thorndike and J. P. Guilford he helped build the institutions of psychometrics.
Main contributions
Primary mental abilities
Using multiple factor analysis, he proposed seven independent abilities, including verbal comprehension, word fluency, number facility and reasoning, and opposed Charles Spearman's single general factor. His 1933 APA presidential address, The Vectors of Mind, set out the multiple-factor case.
Law of comparative judgment
Published in Psychological Review in 1927, it is a measurement approach in which judgements about pairs of stimuli are used to place them on a scale.
Attitude scale
Developed in 1928, initially for attitudes toward religion, it was the first formal technique for measuring an attitude. Respondents endorse statements that each carry a numerical favourability value, and the attitude score is the mean of those values.
Context and limits
His multiple-factor model competed with Spearman's general factor. One encyclopaedia account says the primary abilities held up with university undergraduates but not with school-aged children, whose general intelligence varied more, and that his attitude method was accurate but too complex for applied settings. How many factors are needed remains a matter of debate. The sources read say little about his collaborators, including his wife Thelma Gwinn Thurstone.
In your introductory course
Thinking, language and intelligence.He appears in intelligence chapters as the main early alternative to Spearman's general intelligence, and in methods chapters for attitude measurement.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 7.1. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1927
He published the law of comparative judgment.
- 1928
He developed his attitude scale.
- 1933
He gave the American Psychological Association presidential address The Vectors of Mind.
- 1935
He co-founded the journal Psychometrika with E. L. Thorndike and J. P. Guilford.
Sources
- York University, Classics in the History of Psychology, The Vectors of Mind (1934)Original work. Text passages inspected.
- New World Encyclopedia, Louis Leon ThurstoneReference work. Reference article inspected.
- Wikipedia, Louis Leon ThurstoneReference work. Reference article inspected.