- Peter Schonemann
Peter H. Schönemann is a German born psychometrician and statistical expert. He is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychological Sciences at
Purdue University . His research interests include multivaritate statistics,multidimensional scaling and measurement,quantitative behavior genetics ,test theory and mathematical tools forsocial scientists . He has published around 90 papers dealing mainly with the subjects ofpsychometrics and mathematical scaling. Schönemann’s influences includeLouis Guttman ,Lee Cronbach , Oscar Kempthorne andHenry Kaiser .Schönemann has also been a persistent critic of what he considers to be scientifically sanctioned
racism inpsychology . In particular, he claims that (1)Arthur Jensen and others routinely confuse the first principal component (PC1) with "g" asCharles Spearman defined it, and that (2) the high IQ heritability estimates reported in the literature derive from restrictive formal models whose underlying assumptions are rarely tested and usually violated by the data. [Models and muddles of heritability. Genetica, 99, 97-108: [http://www2.psych.purdue.edu/~phs/pdf/81.pdf] ] [Factorial definitions of intelligence: Dubious legacy of dogma in data analysis. In I. Borg (Ed.), Multidimensional data representations: When and why. Ann Arbor: Mathesis Press, 325-374] [Schönemann, P. H. (1983). Do IQ tests really measure intelligence? Commentary, The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 6, 311-313]Education
1953-56 University of Munich (Vordiplom)
1956-59 University of Gottingen (Diplom)
1960-64 University of Illinois (Ph.D. in General Psychology)
Notable work
Schönemann's PhD thesis "A solution of the orthogonal Procrustes problem with applications to orthogonal and oblique rotation," proposed a solution to the
orthogonal Procrustes problem . Other Schönemann papers include "A generalized solution of the orthogonal Procrustes problem", [A generalized solution of the orthogonal Procrustes problem. Psychometrika, 31, 1-10.: [http://www2.psych.purdue.edu/~phs/pdf/3.pdf] ] "The minimum average correlation between equivalent sets of uncorrelated factors", [The minimum average correlation between equivalent sets of uncorrelated factors. Psychometrika, 36, 21-30.: [http://www2.psych.purdue.edu/~phs/pdf/11.pdf] ] and "Some new results onfactor indeterminacy " [Some new results on factor indeterminacy. Psychometrika, 37, 61-69: http://www2.psych.purdue.edu/~phs/pdf/12.pdf] ] co-authored with M.M. Wang. All papers are routinely cited in the psychometric literature. [Wayne F. Velicer (1974). A Comparison of the Stability of Factor Analysis, Principal Component Analysis, and Rescaled Image Analysis. Educational and Psychological Measurement, Vol. 34, No. 3, 563-572 (1974)DOI: 10.1177/001316447403400309 © 1974 SAGE Publications ] [David V. Budescu (1983). The Estimation of Factor Indeterminacy. Educational and Psychological Measurement, Vol. 43, No. 4, 971-976 (1983) DOI: 10.1177/001316448304300404 © 1983 SAGE Publications ] [Giorgio Vittadini (1989). Indeterminacy Problems in the Lisrel Model. Multivariate Behavioral Research 1989, Vol. 24, No. 4, Pages 397-414 (doi:10.1207/s15327906mbr2404_1)] Schönemann has also written numerous book chapters, including his most recent "Psychometrics ofIntelligence " chapter in the "Encyclopedia ofSocial Measurement " and the “Heritability ” chapter in the “Encyclopedia ofHuman Intelligence ”. [ Peter H. Schönemann (1994). Heritability. In R Sternberg (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Human Intelligence. New York: McMillan, p. 528-536.]"g" theory
Schönemann, in line with psychometricians
Louis Guttman andLee Cronbach , argues for the non-existence of psychometric "g". [Guttman, L. (1955). The determinacy of factor score Matrices with implications for five other basic problems of common theory. Br. J. Statistical Psychol. 8, 65-81. ] [Guttmann, L. (1992). The irrelevance of factor analysis for the study of group differences. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 27, 175-204. ] [Cronbach L.J. (1976) Equity in Selection – Where psychometrics and political philosophy meet. Journal of Educational Measurement, 10, 31-42] He writes that there is a fundamental difference between "g", first defined byCharles Spearman as a latent one-dimensional variable that accounts for all correlations among anyintelligence tests , and a first principal component (PC1) of a positivecorrelation matrix . Spearman's tetrad difference equation states a necessary condition for such a "g" to exist. [Famous artefacts: Spearman's Hypothesis. Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive / Current Psychology of Cognition, 16, 665-698: [http://www2.psych.purdue.edu/~phs/pdf/83.pdf] ] The important proviso for Spearman's claim that such a "g" qualifies as an "objective definition" of "intelligence", is that all correlation matrices of "intelligence tests" must satisfy this necessary condition, not just one or two, because they are all samples of a universe of tests subject to the same "g". Schönemann and others argue that this condition is routinely violated by all correlation matrices of reasonable size, and thus, such a "g" does not exist. [Psychometrics of Intelligence. K. Kemp-Leonard (ed.) Encyclopedia of Social Measurement, 3, 193-201: [http://www2.psych.purdue.edu/~phs/pdf/89.pdf] ] .Twin Studies
Schönemann, in a number of publications, has argued that the
statistical heritability estimates used for mosttwin studies rest on restrictive assumptions which are usually not tested, and if they are, are often found to be violated by the data. [Schönemann, P. H. & Schönemann, R. D. (1994). Environmental versus genetic models for Osborne's personality data on identical and fraternal twins. Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive - Current Psychology of Cognition 13, 141-167: [http://www2.psych.purdue.edu/~phs/pdf/71.pdf] ] This is true for themonozygotic twins raised apart vs together (MZT) studies (Burt, Shields, Jinks and Fulker, Bouchard) as well as for the more widely used MZT vsdizygotic twins raised together studies. [Schönemann, P. H.(1994).Heritability. In R Sternberg (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Human Intelligence. New York: McMillan, p. 528-536.] For example, the narrow heritabilities of responses to the question “did you have your back rubbed” work out to .92 heritable for males and .21 heritable for females. Using the statistical models published in Loehlin and Nichols (1976) the question “Did you wear sunglasses after dark?” is 130% heritable for males and 103% for females. [Models and muddles of heritability. Genetica, 99, 97-108: [http://www2.psych.purdue.edu/~phs/pdf/81.pdf] ] [Totems of the IQ Myth: General Ability (g) and its Heritabilities (h², HR). 1995 Meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences]Several other scholars have also criticized heritability estimates, [Kempthorne O. (1997). Heritability: uses and abuses. Genetica, Volume 99, Numbers 2-3, 1997, pp. 109-112(4)] [Christiane Capron, Adrian R. Vetta, Michel Duyme and Atam Vetta (1999). Misconceptions of biometrical IQists. Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive/Current Psychology of Cognition 1999, 18 (2), 115-160] [Kempthorne, O. (1978). Logical, epistomological and Statistical aspects of nature-nurture, Biometrics, 34, 1-23] and twin studies. [ Joseph, J. (2004). The Gene Illusion: Genetic Research in Psychiatry and Psychology under the Microscope.] [ Joseph, J. (2006). The Missing Gene: Psychiatry, Heredity, And the Fruitless Search for Genes.] [Kamin, L. J. (1974). "The Science and Politics of I.Q." Potomac, MD: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.] [Kendler, K. S., & Gruenberg, A. M. (1984). An independent analysis of the Danish adoption study of schizophrenia. Archives of General Psychiatry, 41, 555-564; Lewontin, R. C., Rose, S., & Kamin, L. J. (1984). Not in Our Genes. New York: Pantheon.] [Rose, R. J. (1982, p. 960). Separated twins: Data and their limits. Science, 215, 959-960.] Yet others argue that the problem with heritability is "a station passed" and that behavior geneticists can and should concentrate on more important problems. [W. E. Crusio (1990) Estimating heritabilities in quantitative behavior genetics: A station passed. "Behavioral and Brain Sciences" 13 127-128]
References
External links
* [http://www2.psych.purdue.edu/~phs/publications.htm Schönemanns' publication list]
* [http://epm.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/38/2/213?ck=nck Power Tables for Analysis of Variance ]
* [http://www.springerlink.com/content/t81245w808123724/ Alternative measures of fit for the Schönemann-carroll matrix fitting algorithm]
* [http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1975.tb00711.x Complexity, extremity, and affect in male and female judgments]
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