The program of individual psychology (1895-1896) by Alfred Binet and Victor Henri

Beginning in the early 1890s, psychologists tried to clarify scientifically the characteristics of individuals, and particularly their intellectual type, thus creating individual psychology. The main objective of individual psychology was the study of individual differences in psychological processes. In 1896, Alfred Binet (1857–1911) and Victor Henri (1872–1940) examined mental tests proposed by various writers (e.g., Cattell, 1890), and found them all very incomplete; moreover, they were not representative because each of them neglected higher intellectual processes. In this context Binet and Henri proposed to measure: 1. memory; 2. the nature of memory images; 3. imagination; 4. attention; 5. the faculty of understanding; 6. suggestibility; 7. aesthetic feeling; 8. moral sentiments; 9. muscular force and force of will; and 10. motor ability. Many ingenious tests were used, selected from those domains in which individual variations were greatest. This program of individual psychology was the first stage in the elaboration of the intelligence test proposed by Binet and Simon in 1905. This paper provides: 1. a review of Binet’s work between 1892 and 1903 in the field of individual psychology; 2. a translation of Binet and Henri’s (1896) important contribution in order to help bring it to the attention of the English-speaking community.