Lewis M. Terman is well-known in the history of American psychology for the Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon intelligence tests and the Genetic Studies of Genius project. The same assumptions informed the genius project and Terman's work in intelligence testing: the notion of the fixity of the IQ at birth and the maturation theory. According to the maturation theory, individuals developed only within the range of differences made possible by the genetic endowment of the "group"--natural, cultural, or both--to which they belonged. In this article the historicity and nonuniversality of Terman's work is discussed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.