Moron is a term once used in
psychology
Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...
and
psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry.
Initial p ...
to denote mild
intellectual disability
Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability in the United Kingdom and formerly mental retardation, Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010). is a generalized neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by signif ...
.
[Rafter, Nicole Hahn (1998). ''Creating Born Criminals.'' University of Illinois Press, ] The term was closely tied with the
American eugenics movement.
[ Black, Edwin (2004). ''War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race.'' Thunder's Mouth Press, ] Once the term became popularized, it fell out of use by the psychological community, as it was used more commonly as an insult than as a psychological term. It is similar to
imbecile and
idiot.
Origin and uses
"Moron" was coined in 1910 by psychologist
Henry H. Goddard
Henry Herbert Goddard (August 14, 1866 – June 18, 1957) was a prominent American psychologist, eugenicist, and segregationist during the early 20th century. He is known especially for his 1912 work '' The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Here ...
[Trent, James W. Jr. (2017). ''Inventing the Feeble Mind: A History of Intellectual Disability in the United States''. Oxford University Press, ] from the
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...
word ''
μωρός'' (''moros''), which meant "dull" and used to describe a person with a mental age in adulthood of between 7 and 10 on the
Binet scale.
[.] It was once applied to people with an
IQ of 51–70, being superior in one degree to "
imbecile" (IQ of 26–50) and superior in two degrees to "
idiot" (IQ of 0–25). The word ''moron'', along with others including "idiotic", "imbecilic", "stupid", and "
feeble-minded", was formerly considered a valid descriptor in the psychological community, but it is now deprecated in use by psychologists.
[Zenderland, Leila (2001). ''Measuring Minds: Henry Herbert Goddard and the Origins of American Intelligence Testing''. Cambridge University Press, ]
In the obsolete medical classification (
ICD-9
The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is a globally used diagnostic tool for epidemiology, health management and clinical purposes. The ICD is maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO), which is the directing and coordinati ...
, 1977), these people (morons and feeble-minded) were said to have "mild
mental retardation", "mild mental
subnormality" or "high-grade defect" with IQ 50–70.
Following opposition to Goddard's attempts to popularize his ideas,
[Goddard, Henry H. Who Is a Moron? '']The Scientific Monthly
''The Scientific Monthly'' was a science magazine published from 1915 to 1957. Psychologist James McKeen Cattell, the former publisher and editor of ''The Popular Science Monthly'', was the original founder and editor. In 1958, ''The Scientific Mon ...
'', Volume 24, Issue 1, pp. 41–46. Goddard recanted his earlier assertions about the moron: "It may still be objected that moron parents are likely to have imbecile or idiot children. There is not much evidence that this is the case. The danger is probably negligible."
[Chase, Allan (1977). ''The Legacy of Malthus: The Social Costs of the New Scientific Racism''. Knopf/Random House, ]
See also
*
Eugenics in the United States
Eugenics, the set of beliefs and practices which aims at improving the Genetics, genetic quality of the human population, played a significant role in the history and culture of the United States from the late 19th century into the mid-20th c ...
*
Euphemism treadmill
*
Congenital iodine deficiency syndrome
Congenital iodine deficiency syndrome is a medical condition present at birth marked by impaired physical and mental development, due to insufficient thyroid hormone ( hypothyroidism) often caused by insufficient dietary iodine during pregnancy. ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moron (Psychology)
Intellectual disability
Obsolete medical terms
Slurs related to low intelligence
Obsolete terms for mental disorders
Pejorative terms for people with disabilities