Psychological tests of research scientists.

THIS paper reports some special aspects of a research project which has been carried on for the past three and a half years. The major part of the project was the clinical study of eminent research scientists in various fields of science, and a consideration of differences and similarities among them in life histories and test performances. The full reports of the study have been published elsewhere [2, 3]. This paper presents certain interrelations between the tests used that are of particular interest. An earlier paper presented similar but less complete data on the biologists alone [4]. The tests employed were the Rorschach, the TAT, and a Verbal-Spatial-Mathematical (VSM) test constructed for the purpose by the Educational Testing Service, the three subtests being separately scored. The verbal test is an antonym test; the spatial test requires identification of drawings of the same object seen in different positions, and the mathematical test is chiefly one of mathematical reasoning. The mathematical test was not difficult enough for the physicists, so that they are not included in any correlations using it. The subjects in the total study included 64 ranking research scientists: 20 biologists, 22 physical scientists, and 22 social scientists (psychologists and anthropologists). For three of these subjects there are no test data available, and there are some deficiencies in the data for the others, as is evident in the tables. These subjects were selected for their eminence in research, in the estimation of their peers. AH are men, all but one are American-born, and all received the bulk of their training here and