Stephen F. Blinkhorn, CPsychol,

FBPsS The British Psychological Society (BPS) is a representative body for psychologists and psychology in the United Kingdom. History It was founded on 24 October 1901 at University College London (UCL) as ''The Psychological Society'', the orga ...

(born 1949) is a British occupational psychologist and psychometrician (based in Hertfordshire), who continues to contribute to

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...

and

psychometric testing Psychometrics is a field of study within psychology concerned with the theory and technique of measurement. Psychometrics generally refers to specialized fields within psychology and education devoted to testing, measurement, assessment, and ...

. Blinkhorn is known for publishing a number of papers, many of which have taken the form of book reviews for ''Nature'' magazine, including: 'Willow, Titwillow, Titwillow' (a review of Herrnstein and

Murray Murray may refer to: Businesses * Murray (bicycle company), an American manufacturer of low-cost bicycles * Murrays, an Australian bus company * Murray International Trust, a Scottish investment trust * D. & W. Murray Limited, an Australian who ...

's ''

The Bell Curve ''The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life'' is a 1994 book by psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray, in which the authors argue that human intelligence is substantially influenced by ...

''); 'What skulduggery?' (a review of Stephen Jay Gould's '

The Mismeasure of Man ''The Mismeasure of Man'' is a 1981 book by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The book is both a History of science, history and critique of the statistical methods and cultural motivations underlying biological determinism, the belief that "the s ...

'); and 'A gender bender' (a critique on Paul Irwing and

Richard Lynn Richard Lynn (born 20 February 1930) is a controversial English psychologist and author. He is a former professor emeritus of psychology at Ulster University, having had the title withdrawn by the university in 2018. He is former assistant edit ...

's paper on

sex and intelligence Sex differences in human intelligence have long been a topic of debate among researchers and scholars. Most psychologists now believe that there are no significant sex differences in G factor (psychometrics), general intelligence, although abili ...

). Other papers have argued about the inappropriate use of the

Rasch model The Rasch model, named after Georg Rasch, is a psychometric model for analyzing categorical data, such as answers to questions on a reading assessment or questionnaire responses, as a function of the trade-off between the respondent's abilities, ...

, and the misuse of

personality tests A personality test is a method of assessing human personality constructs. Most personality assessment instruments (despite being loosely referred to as "personality tests") are in fact introspective (i.e., subjective) self-report questionnaire ( ...

Life and career

After attending grammar school, Blinkhorn attended St Edmund Hall,

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

Academia

From 1973 to 1987, he developed and ran one of the first postgraduate studies in Occupational Psychology (in Britain) at what was then

Hatfield Polytechnic The University of Hertfordshire (UH) is a public university in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. The university is based largely in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Its antecedent institution, Hatfield Technical College, was founded in 1948 and was iden ...

, now the

University of Hertfordshire The University of Hertfordshire (UH) is a public university in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. The university is based largely in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Its antecedent institution, Hatfield Technical College, was founded in 1948 and was ident ...

. During this time, he also spent a year as a visiting professor in the neurological laboratory at Stanford University, California (1981–1982). On his return from Stanford, Blinkhorn was approached by

nferNelson nferNelson is the former name of GL Assessment, a leading independent provider of tests and other assessment services for education in the United Kingdom Education in the United Kingdom is a devolved matter with each of the countries of the ...

(

NFER The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) is an educational research organisation which gathers evidence and research to inform educational policy and school services. The foundation is not an examination board, however they provi ...

's publishing arm) to design new ranges of tests for occupational selection. This led to the formation of the Psychometric Research Unit at Hatfield, which in turn was privatised by Dr. Blinkhorn in 1985.

Psychology and psychometrics

Blinkhorn has been responsible for some of the most widely used ability and aptitude tests for recruitment and selection. He is also known as a critic of bad testing practice, in particular the abuse of

(see papers). At the age of 37, he became one of the then youngest fellows of the British Psychological Society. He has been a member of the BPS's Test Standards Committee, and served on the Society's Fellowships Committee. He is one of three consulting editors for ''Selection & Development Review'' (SDR) (published by the BPS) alongside Victor Dulewicz and Neil Anderson. Blinkhorn was also a member of the panel formed by the BPS to investigate the

polygraph A polygraph, often incorrectly referred to as a lie detector test, is a device or procedure that measures and records several physiological indicators such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while a person is asked ...

and contributed a chapter to the book ''The Polygraph Test'' (1988), which resulted from the investigation. As an expert witness, he has acted on behalf of the

Commission for Racial Equality The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom which aimed to address racial discrimination and promote racial equality. The commission was established in 1976, and disbanded in 2007 when its ...

in several industrial tribunals. He has worked with Harvey Goldstein (on the inappropriate implementation of the

in education), and was involved with the development of National Vocational Qualifications. Blinkhorn also contributed a chapter in ''

Cyril Burt Sir Cyril Lodowic Burt, FBA (3 March 1883 – 10 October 1971) was an English educational psychologist and geneticist who also made contributions to statistics. He is known for his studies on the heritability of IQ. Shortly after he died, his s ...

: Fraud or Framed?'' and 'Was Burt stitched up?' in ''Nature'' magazine. More recently followed by 'There's no-one quite like Grandad' (Blinkhorn's speech at the Lighthill institute of mathematical sciences, Dec 2006) on newly rediscovered evidence which cast 'fresh light on early developments of mathematics applied to psychology' including references to

Charles Spearman Charles Edward Spearman, FRS (10 September 1863 – 17 September 1945) was an English psychologist known for work in statistics, as a pioneer of factor analysis, and for Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. He also did seminal work on mod ...

's original work on general intelligence, and also to J.C. Maxwell Garnett, Cyril Burt, Godfrey Thomson, and

Louis Thurstone Louis Leon Thurstone (29 May 1887 – 29 September 1955) was an American pioneer in the fields of psychometrics and psychophysics. He conceived the approach to measurement known as the law of comparative judgment, and is well known for his cont ...

''Nature'' articles

Since 1980, Blinkhorn has been writing for ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

'', starting with a book review of

Arthur Jensen Arthur Robert Jensen (August 24, 1923 – October 22, 2012) was an American psychologist and writer. He was a professor of educational psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Jensen was known for his work in psychometrics an ...

's ''Bias in Mental Testing''. Steve Blinkhorn has written a number of articles, a few of which have been on controversial issues, such as: Gender and IQ ('Gender Bender'), Vitamin Pills and IQ ('A dose of Vitamins and a Pinch of salt'), Mice and IQ ('Mice and Mentality'), 'Exponent of the exponential' (a review of

Thomas Blass Thomas Blass (December 25, 1941 – December 29, 2021) was an American social psychologist, Holocaust survivor, and professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is known for his work regarding Stanley Milgram ...

' ''The man who shocked the world: the life and legacy of Stanley Milgram''). Other articles such as 'Yes, but what's it for?' discusses how 'the current state of language' makes it difficult to discuss evolution accurately. In 2003, Blinkhorn was listed among ''Nature's'' 'magnificent seven' (writers commended for writing outstanding articles, illustrating 'the great job that scientists can do in communicating and commenting on new research' Others included David Wark, Philip N Benfey, S. Blair Hedges, John Harte, Toren Finzel and Len A.Fisk.''Nature''. 2003. 'News and Views' 426 (18 Dec.): 773-773.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blinkhorn, Steve 1949 births Academics of the University of Hertfordshire Alumni of St Edmund Hall, Oxford British psychologists Living people Psychometricians