Stephen F. Blinkhorn, CPsychol, FBPsS (born 1949) is a British occupational psychologist and psychometrician (based in

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...

), who continues to contribute to

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

and psychometric testing. 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's ''

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

''); 'What skulduggery?' (a review of

Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould ( ; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American Paleontology, paleontologist, Evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, and History of science, historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely re ...

's '

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

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

Richard Lynn Richard Lynn (20 February 1930 – July 2023) was a controversial English psychologist and self-described " scientific racist" who advocated for a genetic relationship between race and intelligence. He was the editor-in-chief of '' Mankind Qua ...

's paper on sex and intelligence). 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 construct (psychology), constructs. Most personality assessment instruments (despite being loosely referred to as "personality tests") are in fact introspective (i.e., subjective) self ...

Life and career

After attending grammar school, Blinkhorn attended

St Edmund Hall St Edmund Hall (also known as The Hall and Teddy Hall) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. The college claims to be "the oldest surviving academic society to house and educate undergraduates in any university" and was the last ...

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

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, now the University of Hertfordshire. During this time, he also spent a year as a visiting professor in the neurological laboratory at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, California (1981–1982). On his return from Stanford, Blinkhorn was approached by nferNelson ( NFER'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 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 org ...

. 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 pseudoscientific device or procedure that measures and records several physiological indicators such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while a ...

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 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 Qualification National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) are practical work-based awards in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland that are achieved through training and assessment. The regulatory framework supporting NVQs was withdrawn in 2015 and replaced by th ...

s. Blinkhorn also contributed a chapter in ''

Cyril Burt Sir Cyril Lodowic Burt, Fellow of the British Academy, FBA (3 March 1883 – 10 October 1971) was an English educational psychology, educational psychologist and geneticist who also made contributions to statistics. He is known for his studies o ...

: 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.

''Nature'' articles

Since 1980, Blinkhorn has been writing for ''

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

'', starting with a book review of Arthur Jensen'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' ''The man who shocked the world: the life and legacy of

Stanley Milgram Stanley Milgram (August 15, 1933 – December 20, 1984) was an American social psychologist known for his controversial Milgram experiment, experiments on obedience conducted in the 1960s during his professorship at Yale University, Yale.Blass, T ...

''). 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 21st-century British psychologists Living people Psychometricians