Raymond Cattell

Raymond Bernard Cattell (20 March 1905 – 2 February 1998) was a British-American psychologist, known for his psychometric research into intrapersonal psychological structure.

His work also explored the basic dimensions of personality and temperament, the range of cognitive abilities, the dynamic dimensions of motivation and emotion, the clinical dimensions of abnormal personality, patterns of group syntality and social behavior, applications of personality research to psychotherapy and learning theory, predictors of creativity and achievement, and many multivariate research methods including the refinement of factor analytic methods for exploring and measuring these domains.

Cattell authored, co-authored, or edited almost 60 scholarly books, more than 500 research articles, and over 30 standardized psychometric tests, questionnaires, and rating scales.

Raymond Cattell was born on 20 March 1905 in Hill Top, West Bromwich, a small town in England near Birmingham where his father's family was involved in inventing new parts for engines, automobiles and other machines.

Thus, his growing up years were a time when great technological and scientific ideas and advances were taking place and this greatly influenced his perspective on how a few people could actually make a difference in the world.

He wrote: "1905 was a felicitous year in which to be born. The airplane was just a year old. The Curies and Rutherford in that year penetrated the heart of the atom and the mystery of its radiations, Alfred Binet launched the first intelligence test, and Einstein, the theory of relativity.

When Cattell was about five years old, his family moved to Torquay, Devon, in the south-west of England, where he grew up with strong interests in science and spent a lot of time sailing around the coastline.

He was the first of his family (and the only one in his generation) to attend university: in 1921, he was awarded a scholarship to study chemistry at King's College, London, where he obtained a BSc (Hons) degree with 1st-class honors at age 19 years.

While studying physics and chemistry at university he learned from influential people in many other fields, who visited or lived in London.

He writes:

"[I] browsed far outside science in my reading and attended public lectures—Bertrand Russell, H. G. Wells, Huxley, and Shaw being my favorite speakers (the last, in a meeting at King's College, converted me to vegetarianism)—for almost two years!"

In regard to statistical methodology, in 1960 Cattell founded the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology (SMEP), and its journal Multivariate Behavioral Research, in order to bring together, encourage, and support scientists interested in multi-variate research.

He was an early and frequent user of factor analysis (a statistical procedure for finding underlying factors in data).

Cattell also developed new factor analytic techniques, for example, by inventing the scree test, which uses the curve of latent roots to judge the optimal number of factors to extract.

He also developed a new factor analysis rotation procedure—the "Procrustes" or non-orthogonal rotation, designed to let the data itself determine the best location of factors, rather than requiring orthogonal factors.

Additional contributions include the Coefficient of Profile Similarity (taking account of shape, scatter, and level of two score profiles); P-technique factor analysis based on repeated measurements of a single individual (sampling of variables, rather than sampling of persons); dR-technique factor analysis for elucidating change dimensions (including transitory emotional states, and longer-lasting mood states); the Taxonome program for ascertaining the number and contents of clusters in a data set; the Rotoplot program for attaining maximum simple structure factor pattern solutions.

As well, he put forward the Dynamic Calculus for assessing interests and motivation, the Basic Data Relations Box (assessing dimensions of experimental designs), the group syntality construct ("personality" of a group), the triadic theory of cognitive abilities, the Ability Dimension Analysis Chart (ADAC), and Multiple Abstract Variance Analysis (MAVA), with "specification equations" to embody genetic and environmental variables and their interactions.

As Lee J. Cronbach at Stanford University stated:

"The thirty-year evolution of the data box and related methodology fed on bold conjecture, self-criticism, unbridled imagination, rational comparison of models in the abstract, and responsiveness to the nasty surprises of data. The story epitomizes scientific effort at its best."

According to a widely cited ranking, Cattell was the 16th most eminent, 7th most cited in the scientific journal literature, and among the most productive psychologists of the 20th century.

He was a controversial figure due in part to his friendships with, and intellectual respect for, white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

Cattell was an early proponent of using factor analytic methods instead of what he called "subjective verbal theorizing" to explore empirically the basic dimensions of personality, motivation, and cognitive abilities.

One of the results of Cattell's application of factor analysis was his discovery of 16 separate primary trait factors within the normal personality sphere (based on the trait lexicon).

He called these factors "source traits".

This theory of personality factors and the self-report instrument used to measure them are known respectively as the 16 personality factor model and the 16PF Questionnaire (16PF).

Cattell also undertook a series of empirical studies into the basic dimensions of other psychological domains: intelligence, motivation, career assessment and vocational interests.

Cattell theorized the existence of fluid and crystallized intelligence to explain human cognitive ability, investigated changes in Gf and Gc over the lifespan, and constructed the Culture Fair Intelligence Test to minimize the bias of written language and cultural background in intelligence testing.

Cattell's research was mainly in personality, abilities, motivations, and innovative multivariate research methods and statistical analysis (especially his many refinements to exploratory factor analytic methodology).

In his personality research, he is best remembered for his factor-analytically derived 16-factor model of normal personality structure, arguing for this model over Eysenck's simpler higher-order 3-factor model, and constructing measures of these primary factors in the form of the 16PF Questionnaire (and its downward extensions: HSPQ, and CPQ, respectively).

He was the first to propose a hierarchical, multi-level model of personality with the many basic primary factors at the first level and the fewer, broader, "second-order" factors at a higher stratum of personality organization.

These "global trait" constructs are the precursors of the currently popular Big Five (FFM) model of personality.

Cattell's research led to further advances, such as distinguishing between state and trait measures (e.g., state-trait anxiety), ranging on a continuum from immediate transitory emotional states, through longer-acting mood states, dynamic motivational traits, and also relatively enduring personality traits.

Cattell also conducted empirical studies into developmental changes in personality trait constructs across the lifespan.

In the cognitive abilities domain, Cattell researched a wide range of abilities, but is best known for the distinction between fluid and crystallized intelligence.

He distinguished between the abstract, adaptive, biologically-influenced cognitive abilities that he called "fluid intelligence" and the applied, experience-based and learning-enhanced ability that he called "crystallized intelligence."

Thus, for example, a mechanic who has worked on airplane engines for 30 years might have a huge amount of "crystallized" knowledge about the workings of these engines, while a new young engineer with more "fluid intelligence" might focus more on the theory of engine functioning, these two types of abilities might complement each other and work together toward achieving a goal.

As a foundation for this distinction, Cattell developed the investment-model of ability, arguing that crystallized ability emerged from the investment of fluid ability in a particular topic of knowledge.

He contributed to cognitive epidemiology with his theory that crystallized knowledge, while more applied, could be maintained or even increase after fluid ability begins to decline with age, a concept used in the National Adult Reading Test (NART).

Cattell constructed a number of ability tests, including the Comprehensive Ability Battery (CAB) that provides measures of 20 primary abilities, and the Culture Fair Intelligence Test (CFIT) which was designed to provide a completely non-verbal measure of intelligence like that now seen in the Raven's.

The Culture Fair Intelligence Scales were intended to minimize the influence of cultural or educational background on the results of intelligence tests.