Iowa Child Welfare Research Station Research Articles

In the Political Laboratory: Kurt Lewin's Atmospheres

In a series of groundbreaking studies conducted in the late 1930s at the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station, the émigré German psychologist Kurt Lewin and his graduate student Ronald Lippitt transformed the relationship between social-scientific experimentation and political design. In the controlled, confined space of the laboratory they were able to produce, they claimed, distinct political ‘climates’. Authoritarian, laissez-faire and, most precarious and precious of all, democratic ‘atmospheres’ were the observable effect of subjecting small groups of children to different styles of ‘leadership’ under artificial conditions of work-play. In this essay, we reconstruct the practical set-up that allowed Lewin and Lippitt to render political forms observable and manipulable under experimental conditions. We will analyze the physical configuration and material furnishings of the experimental setting, as well as the self-affected practices of ‘leadership’ that the experimenters deployed in their attempts to change the political valence of groups. The discovery of a set of technical procedures for the realization of localized but tangible forms of democratic life was a startling and welcome discovery in the bleak years of totalitarian ascendancy. We conclude by revisiting the significance of these experiments for our understanding of how the social sciences can generate spaces and situations of political experimentation.

A Dangerous Man: Lewis Terman and George Stoddard, their Debates on Intelligence Testing, and the Legacy of the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station

A Dangerous Man: Lewis Terman and George Stoddard, their Debates on Intelligence Testing, and the Legacy of the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station

The Wandering IQ: American Culture and Mental Testing

The Iowa Child Welfare Research Station became famous for its sensational research in mental testing in the 1930s and 1940s, which suggested that the IQs of young children could be dramatically booste

The Iowa Child Welfare Research Station and the 1940 debate on intelligence: Carrying on the legacy of a concerned mother

During the late 1930s and early 1940s the nature-nurture issue regarding intelligence generated considerable controversy. The focus of attention for this debate was the Thirty-Ninth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, published in 1940. The Iowa Child Welfare Research Station played a prominent role in this debate. The Iowa researchers, led by George D. Stoddard and Beth L. Wellman, advocated an environmentalist position which challenged the more established hereditarian position held by Lewis M. Terman and his research associates. The Iowa position was closely related to the institutional context of the Child Welfare Research Station.

PEER POPULARITY AND DEPENDENCE ON ADULTS IN PRESCHOOL-AGE SOCIALIZATION

The present research was designed to investigate the interaction between popularity, dependency on adults, and sex in preschool-age children. Marshall and McCandless, studying 38 preschool children in two groups of the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station's Laboratory Preschools, found that on adults in the preschool situation accompanies relatively low social status and participation (2, p. 419). In that investigation dependency was defined as simply the total number of interactions with adults during a prescribed period of observation. In addition to this over-all negative relation between popularity and dependence, Marshall and McCandless found that sex differences significantly characterized the interaction between popularity and dependence; girls showed a median correlation between popularity and dependence of about --.70, while the median correlation for boys was about .40. The present study, then, began as an investigation of why (and if) dependency interferes more with popularity for girls than boys. The correlations reported by Marshall and McCandless imply that a relatively high percentage of adult contacts involve some sort of socially inap-

A longitudinal study of growth in face depth during childhood

American Journal of Physical AnthropologyVolume 17, Issue 2 p. 125-135 Article A longitudinal study of growth in face depth during childhood† Howard V. Meredith, Howard V. Meredith Iowa Child Welfare Research Station, Iowa City, IowaSearch for more papers by this author Howard V. Meredith, Howard V. Meredith Iowa Child Welfare Research Station, Iowa City, IowaSearch for more papers by this author First published: June 1959 https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.1330170208Citations: 14 † Supported in part by a research grant, D-217, from the National Institute for Dental Research, of the National Institutes of Health, U. S. Public Health Service. AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume17, Issue2June 1959Pages 125-135 RelatedInformation

Research in Language Development: Retrospect and Prospect

It is very nice indeed to have been invited to your birthday party! Trained as I was at your sister institution just to the North, I have always had a neighborly interest in the constant stream of stimulating and provocative research which has emerged from the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station. Perhaps, this interest has been somewhat akin to sibling rivalry, for I well remember in my graduate student days what a real threat I felt upon reading a preliminary abstract of Madorah Smith's (21) dissertation on sentence formation. Such is the naivete of the beginner who becomes so deeply involved in his own research he cannot foresee the wealth of knowledge to be discovered in the same general area. Although I almost came to Iowa in i929 to spend my postdoctoral National Research Council fellowship year working on infant vocalizations (and goodness knows what might have happened if I had), my only previous visit to your wonderful campus was at the organization meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development held during a cold Christmas vacation about 1933 when the snow was knee high. Reminiscences are permissible, I think, on the occasion of an anniversary such as this, and I should like to pay brief tribute today to your first chief, Bird T. Baldwin, whose Psychology of the Preschool Child (3) written in collaboration with Lorle I. Stecher, was the standard reference on the young child in my student days. Although I knew Bird Baldwin only by sight, I felt a real personal loss at the time of his death, for he was a pioneer in my chosen field. My first glimpse of his successor, George D. Stoddard, who will address us this evening, was at the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection in 1930. When the young, newly-appointed

BASIC APPROACHES TO MENTAL HEALTH: AN INTRODUCTION

This is the first in a series of articles on “Basic Approaches to Mental Health,” which will appear in successive issues of the Journal. Following this article, each contribution will present a particular program designed to foster positive menial health through the schools. Scheduled for publication are articles on the programs at the Institute for Child Study, University of Maryland, by Drs. Bernard Peck and Daniel A. Prescott; at the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station, State University of Iowa, by Dr. Ralph H. Ojemann; at the Nebraska Human Resources Research Foundation, University of Nebraska, by Dr. William E. Hall; at Forest Hills, Ontario, by Drs. John R. Seeley and Thomas Mallinson; and at The Merrill‐Palmer School, Detroit, Michigan, by Dr. Clark E. Moustakas.—Ed.

PERCEPTUAL RIGIDITY AND CLOSURE PHENOMENON AS A FUNCTION OF MANIFEST ANXIETY IN CHILDREN

An increasing number of investigations have been concerned with the psychological and behavioral correlates of the Taylor manifest anxiety scale (i9). The Taylor scale (MAS) is coordinated with the theoretical drive (D) variable in Hull's behavior theory; i.e., scores on the test presumably reflect variations in the emotional reactivity (drive) of the individual. Predictions generated from the Hullian assumptions regarding the functional relationship between drive level and performance have been, in general, confirmed in a variety of simple and complex learning situations (e.g., 5, 7). However, the failure of several studies (I, 9, 12) to yield data consistent with these assumptions indicates the need for continued experimental efforts designed to clarify the functional properties of the manifest anxiety scale. The present investigation was designed to explore certain consequences of manifest anxiety in children. In a recent review of experimental studies concerned with the relationship between motivation and learning, Bruner et al. (3) indicate that a reduction in behavioral adaptivity is often associated with high levels of drive. These writers suggest that . . conditions requiring increased speed and efficiency of goal attainment . . . (e.g., deprivation) . . . may have the effect of the range of environmental cues to which the individual responds (3, P- 9). Similar perceptual constriction effects have been noted to be associated with induced anxiety (18), motivational relevance and context of the task stimuli (8), and level of anxiety (13)However, the theoretical and experimental problems associated with specifying the processes which mediate the narrowing of the field have received relatively little attention. One plausible explanation for the reduction in responsiveness to environmental cues is that relatively high motivational levels tend to increase 1 The data for this study were collected while the author was a member of the staff of the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station, State University of Iowa.

A Test Of General Information For Children Of Preschool Age

tional program, there is ? rising need for some objective means of measuring the relative achievement and progress of children between the ages of two and five years in all phases of their educational development. At the present time there is a dearth of standardized tests, either of general information or of specific content knowledge, for children below the kindergarten level, and only a limited number for children from five to six years. It was the purpose of this research to con struct an achievement test of general informa tion for preschool children, integrating the results of this study with other research pre viously done in the field of information tests at the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station, (i) (8) (10) (ii) (13) (15). The work of the four2 test authors (1) (8) (10) (15), upon which this research was based, though exploratory in nature, did indicate that it is possible to differentiate between preschool children on the basis of their informational

Speech Sound Elements During the First Year of Life: A Review of the Literature

No AccessJournal of Speech DisordersResearch Article1 Jun 1943Speech Sound Elements During the First Year of Life: A Review of the Literature Orvis C. Irwin andPh.D. Han Piao Chen*M.A. Orvis C. Irwin Iowa Child Welfare Research Station Google Scholar More articles by this author and Han Piao Chen* Iowa Child Welfare Research Station Google Scholar More articles by this author https://doi.org/10.1044/jshd.0802.109 SectionsAboutPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationTrack Citations ShareFacebookTwitterLinked In Additional Resources FiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsCited ByJournal of Speech and Hearing Research6:3 (277-290)1 Sep 1963A Detailed Analysis of Articulation Responses of ‘Normal’ First Grade ChildrenKatherine Snow Volume 8Issue 2June 1943Pages: 109-121 Get Permissions Add to your Mendeley library History Published in issue: Jun 1, 1943 Metrics Topicsasha-topicsasha-article-typesCopyright & PermissionsCopyright © 1943 American Speech-Language-Hearing AssociationPDF DownloadLoading ...

The Special Case of Germany

THE following article goes well beyond the problems of military government to a confsideration of German culture and the seeds of militarism. The heart of the problem, as Kurt Lewin sees it, is the relation of leader and follower in Germany. Germans, because they confuse loyalty with obedience, have never learned how to criticize their bosses. Can that be changed? How, and by whom? The author brings to the problem a rich background of research experience in the training of leaders. Because the military administrator, both as a leader himself and as a supervisor of Germans chosen to administer the affairs of other Germans, must deal with the special problem of leader-follower relationships, this article is more than an exercise in theory. Its conclusions are, at very least, a challenge. Dr. Lewin, Professor of Psychology at the University of Berlin in the days before Hitler, now serves in the same capacity at the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station of the University of Iowa, and is the author of numerous books and articles in the field of psychology.

The Mental Development of Adopted Children Whose True Mothers Are Feeble-Minded

Among the numerous questions in the field of mental deficiency, one in particular has practical implications for child welfare. It runs something like this, mentally deficient girls are such notorious sources of illegitimate children, what policy ought to be adopted with reference to these Are they doomed to feeble-mindedness and life-long institutional care? Or can they be placed in normal adoptive homes with reasonable expectation that they will develop into normal children? The experimental evidence which should form the basis of a reply to this question consists of the placement of young infants of known feeble-minded parentage in normal, average homes where they will grow up as integral members of the family. Such experiments are probably not infrequent in the placement of children for adoption. However, the combination of definite information on the parentage and on the mental development of the child is rare. It happens that this information is available on the progress of a group of such children so placed in Iowa. Since the first results of the larger program, of which this study is a part, have been made available elsewhere (2), only brief references to the general results will be made. Through the co-operation of the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station, the Iowa State Board of Control, and the Iowa Children's Home Society, a program for the study of the mental development of foster children has been underway for the past four years. At the present time special attention is being focused on the study of the mental development of those children who were placed in adoptive homes under the age of six months. Since the mean age at placement was approximately three months, the children were placed in their permanent homes without having experienced the environmental influences of their true mothers' homes. Out of a total group of 154 children placed under the age of six months, whose mothers ranged from feeble-minded to superior in intelligence, it was possible to select sixteen children whose mothers were definitely known to be feebleminded, not only on the basis of intelligence test scores but also on the basis of qualitative diagnoses by the examiners, school and occupational histories, and social adjustment. Recommendation for institutional care or very close social supervision had been made in all these cases. That this group of sixteen is definitely selected for inferiority of true parents is evident when the group is compared to the total group of 154 foster children, as shown in Table 1.

RETARDATION OF GROWTH IN DIABETIC CHILDREN

Observations in the clinic of the Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, University of Iowa, have indicated that the majority of children with diabetes mellitus have a normal propensity for growth. Our earlier data 1 have been amplified by measurements which were collected during the past ten years. These measurements confirm the earlier conclusions that the well controlled diabetic child may be expected to grow at a rate which equals or exceeds that of superior children. However, in a review of data for 167 children with diabetes mellitus observed in this clinic prior to January, 1935, physical retardation was noted in 6 per cent of the group. This report deals with the 10 children whose stature or rate of growth over long periods was markedly lower than the standard values used for comparison. The norms chosen as standards were those compiled by the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station; they are

Certain Laterality Characteristics of Children with Articulatory Disorders

Certain previous studies (i, 2, 3, 4, 5), together with the writers' clinical observations, have suggested the possibility of a relation between functional articulatory disorders and confusion in the bilateral aspects of neuromuscular organization. The study reported in this article was carried out in the Psychological and Speech Clinic and the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station of the University of Iowa' for the purpose of investigating certain laterality characteristics of severe functional articulatory cases and comparing these with the same characteristics in normally speaking children.

The Mental Development of Children from Underprivileged Homes

* Received in the Editorial Office on December 18, 1936. 1 The writers wish to express their appreciation to the Iowa Board of Control of State Institutions which at all times cooperated in making possible research studies of state wards; to Mr. Syl McCauley, Superintendent of the Iowa Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home, at which institution the children in this study were examined; and to Dr. George D. Stoddard, Director of the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station, who has made possible this study.

A Cooperative Orphanage Research

For the past fourteen years the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station at the University of Iowa has been carrying on research studies in con nection with preschool laboratory groups located at the University. These laboratories, now numbering four, include children from the ages of two to five and represent a very definitely superior group from .the standpoint of intelligence. A year ago it was possible for the Iowa Child Welfare Research Sta tion to enlarge its scope of study of the preschool child to include a group of underprivileged children who are of somewhat lower mental levels than are those in the University laboratories and who are living under controlled variations of environmental influences. This extension labor atory is located at the Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home in Davenport, Iowa, and is being sponsored jointly by the Station and the Iowa State Board of Control of State Institutions. In the early stages of this program, it was recognized that one of the major needs at the Orphans' Home was a more definite educational pro gram for the preschool child. In addition, since the Station was inter ested in studies relating to the effects of preschool education, a very definite need was felt for preschool groups where the multiple variable of individual homes could be somewhat reduced. A group of orphanage children under relatively comparable and con stant cottage conditions seemed to meet these requirements rather ade quately. Consequently, the Davenport cooperative preschool project was established and is, so far as we know, the first preschool to be operated anywhere with an orphanage and a university cooperating. For the sake of contrast with the level of society which the Univer sity preschools represent, it is probably well to mention briefly the back ground of the orphanage children. All the children in this particular orphanage are dependents and come from neglected homes. Ninety per cent of the fathers have the vocational status of day laborers or of semi skilled laborers. And in addition to that fact, we find that all are from homes which are not self-supporting. The educational status of the par ents is low?a few have had a year or two of high school, but a large ma jority have never gone farther than the eighth grade. And it goes with out saying that prior to their residence in the institution, the home sit 437

A Multiple Factor Study of Eighteen Anthropometric Measurements of Iowa City Boys Aged Nine Days to Six Years

battery has in addition a specific factor which is unique for that item. This theory made a contribution but was inadequate for applica tion in research areas where there was more than one common factor or where several group factors were present. In 1928 Profes sor Truman Kelley (4), now at Harvard Uni versity, presented a method in which he at tempted to overcome the shortcomings of Spearman's This method was at once highly complex and limited in the scope of its application. After several years of preliminary experi mentation, Professor L. L. Thurstone (n) of the University of Chicago published in 1931 a theory of multiple factor analysis by the use of which any number of common group factors might be isolated and weighted. The numerical values of the finally adjusted weightings correspond to zero-order correla tions between the factors and the variables in which they are present. According to Thur stone, a common factor in general is an ele mental or unitary ability, component, or basic trait which is common in greater or lesser de gree to all the variables, and a group factor is one which is present in a number of vari ables but not in all. Each group or common factor is assumed to be uncorrelated (16, p. 5?~-53 ) with the other group or common fac tors. Common factors were first determined by a least squares method, but Thurstone later developed a so-called center of gravity method which will be discussed. In this tech nique, the final adjustment of the factor load ings is accomplished by what is termed a logical method. Applied to psychological tests he found that the method isolated such factors as verbal ability, mechanical ability, memory of numbers, spacial imagery, etc. In other fields the factors vary, as for example in motor abilities where such factors as strength, speed, and motor educability have been identified (7, 19). Professor Harold Hotelling (3) of Colum bia in 1933 and Professor Kelley (5) in 1935 developed further methods of factor analysis, but some of the assumptions necessary to the use of these methods seem untenable to the writer (See discussion in Thurstone (16, p. 129-133) and on page 213 of this study); hence the Thurstone technique is used in this investigation. In the field of anthropometry, multiple factor analysis is at an early experimental stage. At the time the present research was projected the only application known to the writer was an unpublished study (7, p. 26-32 ) by Professor Charles H. McCloy of the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station. This study consisted of a survey analysis for eighteen an thropom?trie measurements at selected ages between birth and eighteen years. For males, analyses were made at nine days of age and at ages four, six, ten, fourteen, and eighteen years. For females, parallel analyses were made at ages nine days and four, six, ten, and thirteen years. Three group factors were found. These were tentatively identified as (1) a factor of linear growth, (2) a factor of cross-sectional growth and (3) a factor of fat growth. The first was largest in * This thesis was submitted in partial fulfillment of the re quirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate College of the University of Iowa and was directed by Dr. C H. McCloy.

THE RELATION OF THE FOSTER HOME ENVIRONMENT TO THE MENTAL DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN PLACED IN INFANCY

The mental development of children placed in foster homes is being studied cooperatively by the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station and the Bureau of Child Welfare. The present report is the first unit of a long-time study. As time progresses, children from infancy to six years of age at time of placement in foster homes will be included in order to determine changes in mental growth with changes in the environment. The unit now being reported includes only children who were under six months of age when placed in foster homes. The state program requires that a child be in the foster home at least twelve months before application for adoption can be made. The group includes all children for whom application for adoption was made during the fiscal year from February 1, 1934 to February 1, 1935 who had been placed before they were six months of age, a total of seventy-three children. These children have been in the foster homes from one to five years. The mean chronological age of this group at time of placement was 2.5 months. The children have therefore experienced essentially only the environment of the foster home.

SUSCEPTIBILITY OF NURSERY SCHOOL CHILDREN TO CERTAIN COMMUNICABLE DISEASES OF CHILDHOOD

Occasionally it has been stated that nursery schools, because they foster extensive contacts of children with each other, favor the spread of disease among children attending them, and that in spite of frequent inspections by nurse or physician, disease takes hold and spreads. The study here reported was undertaken to discover the relative number of cases of certain communicable diseases among children of preschool age attending a school group and among children of the same age not attending a group of this sort. There were available 470 health records of 328 children attending the preschool laboratories of the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station during a period of fifty-nine months between September, 1926, and February, 1933. The general plan of the study was that of finding the incidence of certain communicable diseases in the school group and comparing this incidence with that in three groups of children of more or less