468 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—J. 
Division 2. 
Dr. W. SterHenson.—The Incidence of Spearman Factors in Psychiatrical 
Material. 
In a mental hospital psychologists and psychiatrists co-operated in a survey of 
psychiatrical material—patients with delusions, dementia przcox, melancholia, 
manic-depressive psychosis, &c.—with, on the psychological side, the Spearman 
Factors as the experimental approach to determination of the objective mental 
conditions of the patients. 
The factors measured were g-factor (‘general intelligence’), p-factor (general 
mental inertia, ‘ perseveration,’ the continuance of the effect of past experience), 
o-factor (fluctuations of attention), memory, and w-factor (‘ purposiveness,’ a ‘ will ’- 
factor). The purpose of this paper is to afford illustration of Spearman mental tests 
that could be used profitably in mental clinics, particularly for research purposes, 
to show the functioning of certain of the tests, and to give a short summary of the 
contact made by the tests with psychiatrical classification, and with dementia. 
New non-verbal g-tests were employed ; their value was shown in cases of senile 
psychoses. Interesting general results were reached in measurements of the o-factor, 
where, even with the simple 5-minute o-tests used, high oscillation was shown to be 
highly associated with impulsive, restless behaviour in general. 
Our particular interest is in the p-factor. The p-tests showed high correlations 
and showed contact with psychotic conditions, especially in (a) the manic, 
manic-depressive and melancholic reaction types, and (b) the precox psychosis. 
There were indications of a second p-factor, especially in the precox psychosis, 
associated with perseveration (continued action) of excitement. 
In routine clinical work the measurement of the various factors appears to be 
possible ; the p-factor especially seems to be of very great importance, and is as 
readily observable as the g-factor (intelligence). 
a mae 
; 
Dr. Evetyn Lawrence.—The Social Distribution of Intelligence. 
The study to be described provides data on variations in intelligence test results 
with the social class of the subjects tested, with special reference to the parts played 
by heredity and environment. 
The average I.Q. of children in certain Poor Law and other institutions is compared 
with that of elementary school, and preparatory school, children. Some figures for 
adolescents and adults are furnished by the scores obtained by public school boys 
and girls, training college students, and Workers’ Educational Association students 
in the National Institution of Industrial Psychology’s Group Test 33. 
The large differences among these groups, however, throw little light on the 
problem of inherited class differences, as the effects of environment and training 
cannot be weighed. A possible means of examining the question is provided by the 
study of children removed from their homes into institutions in earliest infancy, or 
when progressive changes of intelligence can be looked for where environment has 
changed in some definite way. Groups of such children are hereexamined. Stanford- 
Binet tests and Simplex group tests were given to 384 children of ages from 5 to 15, 
who left their mothers at an average age of six months, and who had never come in 
contact with their fathers. The intelligence test results of these children have been — 
correlated with the social class of the parents. 
In another group of institution children it has been possible to compare the 
correlation between intelligence and parents’ class for children who left home very 
young, and those who left later in life. Increase in intelligence was also looked for 
among children who were taken from very bad homes into improved surroundings. 
A further comparison useful for the estimates of the effect of environment is that 
between the variability of groups of children brought up in very homogeneous condi- 
tions and that of those brought up in their own diverse homes. The groups described 
furnish such a comparison. 
It has been argued that most of the studies of social differentiation of intelligence 
have been based on Binet and other tests mainly verbal in their nature, and that 
smaller differences might be found if more practical manifestations of intelligence 
were examined. Correlations between social class and performance tests results 
among groups of London elementary school children are here available for examination. — 
