Charles Spearman has been a strong influence throughout the psychology world. Working with powerful people he studied correlation and statistics. He started out differently than most psychologists but made his name known.
Charles was born on London on September 10th, 1863 into a respected family. Charles Spearman was the second son of Alexander Young Spearman. Alexander died at the age of 33 in 1865. His mother, Louisa Ann Caroline Amelia Spearman remarried to Henry Seel who taught in London. But, eventually, his mother became widowed again. In 1901, Spearman married Fanny Aikman, with whom he had a son and four daughters with but his son inevitably died in World War 1. Even though Spearmen excelled in mathematics and science, his heart belonged to philosophy which would later turn into psychology. He went to Leamington College and after that, enrolled into the Royal Engineers of the British Army in 1988. He was awarded many medals throughout his 15 years in the Army but always believed that life’s problems could be solved using psychology . He studied abroad because at the time psychology was thought of as philosophy in Great Britain. He eventually got his PhD in experimental psychology. He chose to study in Leipzig under William Wundt, but also worked together with Oswald Kaulpe (1862-1915) at the University of Waurzburg and with Georg Elias Mauller (1850-1934) at the University of Gaottingen. Spearman was soon back in action though, because of the South African War or the Boer War. After that, he obtained his degree in 1906.
William Wundt was considered the “Father of Psychology” but Spearman’s true influence was Sir Francis Galton. Other influences included: two well-known psychologists Raymond Cattell and David Wechsler, and five others who were influenced by him were Anne Anastasi, J. P. Guilford, Philip Vernon, Cyril Burt, and Arthur Jensen. Without support from Wundt, Spearman started studying the Galtonian notion that individual differences in sensory discrimination were positively correlated with different measures of cognitive ability. To accomplish this theory, Spearman came up with the technique of factor analysis. He hypothesized that a variety of tests such as: mathematical ability, vocabulary, logical reasoning, artistic ability, et cetera; could be explained by one factor of general intelligence he labeled “g.” He said that if “g” could be measured and you could select a population of people with the same “g” score, then in the population you would find no correlation among any of the tests. It was a very intriguing idea but, unfortunately, was wrong. Factor analysis is different; it is used to study the patterns of relationships among many dependent variables, with the goal of discovering something about the nature of the independent variables that affect them. Those independent variables aren’t measured directly though. The theory “g” was influential but it was also critiqued by many others, such as, for instance Godfrey Thomson. Factor analysis underlies much of modern behavioral research. He published his study in 1904 titled “General Intelligence, Objectively Determined and Measured.” The publishing identifies and reviews five major areas concerning the personal importance of cognitive abilities and methods used to study them. Spearman made four major discoveries: The first theoretical approach was that the value would have no meaning. The second approach was that one could use raw scores to compute true principles. Thirdly, the equations that were to be used in the second law could be used to “determine if the causes between two sets of measures have something in relation with two or more sets of measures.” The fourth approach, as stated by Spearman, "the common and essential element in the intelligences wholly coincides with the common and essential element in the Sensory Functions.” In 1927 came "The Abilities of Man.” In addition, "The Nature of Intelligence" and the "Principles of Cognition" came in 1923 and were great articles that explained Charles Spearman theories and contributions to psychology. Human behavior in important life outcomes and cognitive abilities are critical in more ways than social scientist realize. His statistical work was not appreciated by his University College colleague Karl Pearson and there was a long feud between them.
Although Spearman achieved most recognition in his day for his statistical work, he regarded this work as subordinate to his quest for the fundamental laws of psychology, and he is now similarly renowned for both. Some of his other awards included: Fellow of the Royal Society (Great Britain) and member of the National Academy of Sciences ( U.S.A.).