J. D. B. News Letter

“Jewish students at Columbia College are far superior to other students both in intelligence test scores and academic performance,” according to Dr. Henry E. Garment, of Columbia University.

This deduction is contained in “Jews and Other-Some Group Differences in Personality, Intelligence and College Achievement.” an article by Dr. Garment which will appear in the forthcoming number this month at “The personnel Journal.” The official organ of the Personnel Research Federation, the booklet edited by Walter W. Hingham, is published in-monthly by the Williams and Willies Company of Baltimore.

“A few definite facts,” a foreword to the article stated, “about Jews Italians and English are more illuminating than hundreds of opinions. A comparison of what Hebrew, Catholic and Protestant students actually accomplish in college tends to dissipate prejudice. Professor Garrett has not answered all the questions that arise regarding differences between such racial and religious groups, but he has measured and reported certain highly interesting characteristics of some of the students at Columbia.”

Differences between Jewish college students and other racial and religious groups were measured by means of college grades the Thorndike Intelligence Examination, the George Washington Social Intelligence Test and the Laid Personal Inventory B2. The report by Dr. Garment deals with differences between these groups as so measured and also with the relationship between the traits measured. The subjects were 296 freshmen at Columbia.

“When classified as to ancestry.” Dr. Garment writes, “the Jewish students were found to rank higher in college grades than the other groups, i.e., English, Italian, etc. They were ahead also in general Intelligence, although the difference here was not so great as in college achievement. It seems probable that selection plays a not unimportant role in these results. There were no reliable group differences as regards Social Intelligence on Laird Personal Inventory.

“Classified as to religion the Jewish students are again considerably ahead of both the Catholic and Protestant groups in general intelligence as well as in college achievement. They are slightly superior in social intelligence and somewhat less stable emotionally as measured by the Personal Inventory. These last differences, however, are not reliable.”

Forty-two different national groups and combinations were represented among the 296 students. Nixed and racial groups were embodied in the

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whole number “as the Jews are hardly a national group in the same sense that the English or the Italians are.”

The Jews “constitute, however,” Dr. Garrett adds, “so large and so well defined a group that we decided to include them as such. Only the first six groups (78 per cent of our data) were sufficiently large to make comparisons worth while.”

These groups were divided as follows: Jewish 82, English 65, German 33. Italian 17, Irish 16, English-German 15.

“The Jewish group,” according to Dr. Garrett, “is clearly superior to the other groups in scholastic performance, the difference between their mean and that of their nearest competitor (the Italians) being 4.71 times its standard error. The gap between the Jews and the Irish is in reality a chasm. In respect to general intelligence the Jewish group is again significantly ahead, although their superiority here is not so great.

“Apart from better native ability which may, of course, be the real reason, there are two possible contributing causes for the marked superiority of the Jews. In the first place, it is very probable that the preparation of those Jews who apply for admission to Columbia College is on the whole better than that of the other applicants. Secondly, the standards or criteria for admission are probably some what higher for Jewish students. Rigorous selection would automatically boost the Thorndike Scores while better preparation would tend to increase college grades. Whatever may be the relative potency of these factors, the fact remains that the Jewish students in Columbia College are far superior to other students both in intelligence test scores and academic performance. This would not necessarily hold for other institutions where selection methods are less drastic.

“The scores on the Social Intelligence Test show no marked trend, the Jews and the English-Germans ranking highest and about the same. In ’emotional stability’ there were no significant differences.”

In a comparison of groups according to religion, twelve of the students failed to answer the question asking for religious affiliation or preference. Only the first three groups were large enough to be used for comparative purposes. These were Protestants, 136; Hebrews, 75; Catholics, 58.

“As might be expected.” Dr. Garrett declares, “after our comparison of national groups, the Hebrew students rank highest in Grades and Thorndike Examination. Here they rank highest, too, in Social Intelligence and ’emotional instability,’ although the latter difference is small and insignificant. There are no reliable differences between the Catholics and Protestants. Apparently, religious affiliation has no relation to the intelligence scores or scholastic performance of our group of freshmen. In many cases, of course, religious affiliation is nominal and plays a very minor role in the man’s everyday life.”