Rebel with a Cause: The Autobiography of Hans Eysenck

by Hans Jürgen Eysenck

Hans Eysenck is one of the world's leading psychologists and undoubtedly the most controversial. Throughout a long and illustrious career his work on personality and intelligence has aroused impassioned debate and attacks, both verbal and physical, on Eysenck himself. In his compelling and absorbing autobiography, Eysenck recounts in some detail the battles he had to fight in order to establish his major conclusions, as well as the reasons why he investigated these subjects. He also discusses his work on such topics as the health hazards of smoking, the prophylactic effects of behavior therapy on cancer and coronary heart disease, parapsychology, astrology, and other matters. In a new foreword, written for this edition, Eysenck expresses his pleasure regarding the fact that his autobiography is now being published in the United States. He discusses how much of his scientific life has been bound up with American psychology. Also new to this American edition is a chapter titled "Genius, Creativity, and Vitamins," in which Eysenck talks about the research he has worked on since his retirement in 1983. Rebel with a Cause is an intriguing autobiography and will be of paramount interest to psychologists, sociologists, and genetic scientists.

Genres: Psychology, Biography

364 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

= Hans J. Eysenck = H.J. Eysenck
Hans Jürgen Eysenck (/ˈaɪzɛŋk/; 4 March 1916 – 4 September 1997) was a psychologist born in Germany, who spent his professional career in Great Britain. He is best remembered for his work on intelligence and personality, though he worked in a wide range of areas. At the time of his death, Eysenck was the living psychologist most frequently cited in science journals

Reviews

[Emil O. W. Kirkegaard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly a fun autobiography! Lot of claims to check up on.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eysenck's life work focused on the measurement of personality along 3 dimensions, PEN, the biological correlates of those personality traits, the extension of that system to the personalities of animals, the mythological as opposed to scientific status of Freudian psychoanalysis, and substantial measurement of intelligence as well. He was an early advocate of the position that personality was largely genetically determined, was a strong advocate for the mostly hereditarian position on IQ exemplified by Jensen (though he also did some notable work on vitamin supplementation raising the IQ of children if they were deficient), and in general tried to push psychology in a more rigorous direction.

His autobiography details numerous instances of the scientific establishment being slow to change but quick to attack those with new or unorthodox ideas. As a model of scientific rigour and truth-seeker Eysenck is hard to beat-- his work on parapsychology and astrology lent some support to the former and mostly disconfirmed the latter, though a substantial portion of his autobiography is devoted to exploring a specific astrological prediction that has withstood multiple replications (as of the time of the autobiography's writing, of course)-- the so-called "House of Mars" effect. Paraphrasing, the 'House of Mars' effect is that a higher-than-expected number of eminent soldiers, statesmen and athletes are born at certain astrological signs, while eminent scientists are found at higher-than-expected numbers at other times. If I'm remembering correctly Eysenck details 3 independent and large-scale replications of this effect-- even though the originator of the idea had been, through means subtle and unsubtle, been smeared by other researchers for even proposing this idea.

Among other interesting tidbits the way in which the public discourse of his time almost identically replicates our own sticks out: the debates on IQ, race and the heredity of mental traits, the continual failure of mainstream journalism to accurately report on scientific findings or even what the scientists in question are actually saying, the repeated and egregious failures of the mainstream medical establishments to seek truth over status, and the way in which truths are prematurely established within a scientific community and thereafter defended with too much fire and not enough dispassionate analysis.

Examples of this pattern include: the Medical Research Council of Britain spreading lies about the study Eysenck and others conducted on nutritional supplementation raising children's IQ's, which had been designed to be a replication of a smaller-scale study that had found positive results. Eysenck's study replicated those effects but the MRC, which Eysenck describes as being in the process of lowering the RDA, did much to smear these results. The link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer (and other ailments) was, when Eysenck was embroiled in the controversy, much less firm than it is nowadays-- many prominent scientists and statisticians, like RA Fisher, had pointed out many methodological problems with studies linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer. I don't pretend to understand all the criticisms, and modern studies that are actually genetically informed largely obviate these concerns (such as a recent study [*1]that examined identical twins discordant on cigarette smoking that showed cigarette smoking was still associated with higher rates of lung cancer) but the early epidemiological studies certainly had many flaws.

While scientists actually working on this issue nowadays are (probably) not as sloppy as they were then I still see the popular press overestimating the effect size of [how bad cigarette smoking is] by conflating correlation with causation...

As for the man himself: Eysenck writes in an exceptionally calm style, only really showing strong emotion on a couple of topics-- others acting in ways he considers contrary to 'science/truth', the fascism and simple-mindedness of those in Germany that supported Hitler, and his family. Eysenck explores his early childhood with honesty but not false humility-- he writes about how easy he found schoolwork, his exceptional ability at most subjects (excluding the arts) and his natural ability at sports. Some might find his honest account of his natural gifts off-putting or arrogant but this seems more like insecurity on the part of the reader than anything else. Eminent people are usually enormously talented-- Eysenck is no exception, and ignoring this fact is comforting but still contrary to reality...

Interesting topics in psychology I'm left thinking about and will explore in the future: personality and learning styles: do extroverts perform better with more stimulation and/or open-ended exploration in education? Does the 'House of Mars' effect replicate? What is the true causal effect of smoking on risk of lung cancer, strokes, heart attacks, etc. ? How effective is behavioral therapy?

[*1]=["Modifiable Risk Factors as Predictors of All-Cause Mortality: The Roles of Genetics and Childhood Environment]"

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE CONTROVERSIAL PSYCHOLOGIST

Hans Jürgen Eysenck (1916-1997) was a British psychologist of German origin, known for his work on intelligence testing [The IQ argument], and his critiques of psychoanalysis [e.g., 'Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire']; he wrote many books such as the trilogy: 'Uses and Abuses of Psychology,' 'Sense and Nonsense in Psychology,' and 'Fact and Fiction in Psychology.'

He wrote in the Introduction to this 1990 book, "Writing an autobiography is a novel discipline for me, and while I enjoyed it, I also noted a number of problems. Modesty is one... Most people expect psychologists to have exceptional insight into their inner life, their emotions, motivations, and feelings... I will not try to psychologize and psychoanalyze myself or the people who will put in an appearance in the course of this book..." (Pg. 3-4)

He states, "I never had the slightest interest in religion, other than as a social and literary phenomenon... My disenchantment with the Christian religion began early on, when I found it impossible to reconcile the existence of evil with the omnipotence and essential goodness of God." (Pg. 10)

After recounting his large number of Jewish friends while he lived in Germany (including while the Nazis came to power), he states, "Jewishness is a religious faith, and now maybe a national entity, but it is not a race. Arthur Koestler... describes very cogently in his book The Thirteenth Tribe how an Aryan-speaking tribe, the Khazars... decided ... to make the country adopt the Jewish religion... they were driven west into what is now Hungary, Yugoslavia and particularly Russia; from there they spread to Austria, Germany and other European countries. Thus a majority of the Jews in Germany apparently come from a non-Jewish race!" (Pg. 34)

He says, "the horror of the Holocaust ... should always be in the memory of anyone who feels like criticizing Jewish national aspirations. I am neither proud nor ashamed of being a German... but I can never forget what my fellow-countrymen did to the Jews, and will always have a feeling that there is a huge debt that can never be repaid. It would be easy to think of all Hitler's followers as evil, but I think that would be a great mistake.... many... of the followers of Hitler were the victims of his rhetoric, completely ignorant of the real meaning of his satanic will... All this is not intended as an excuse, but to differentiate between the average German who voted for Hitler without understanding what he stood for, and the degenerates who helped him in his program of preparing for and carrying out the Holocaust..." (Pg. 34-36)

He explains, "I worked out five principles which I thought governed the study of psychology as a scientific discipline... [1] man was a biosocial organism, whose conduct was determined equally by biological factors ... and by social constraints... [2] we must reject the Cartesian notion of body and mind as separate 'substances,' and instead plump for a mind-body continuum... [3] the need to reconcile the two major disciplines of scientific psychology, the correlational and the experimental... [4] the distinction between applied and pure science is particularly uninformative in psychology... [5] for any assertion in psychology, there should be an attempt at proof." (Pg. 63-66)

He observes, "I looked at the published evidence concerning the efficacy of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis ... and came to the conclusion that there was nothing to suggest that it did any better than a placebo treatment or no treatment at all... I wrote a number of papers ... mine was the only paper which not only gave the evidence, but also explicitly formulated the conclusion that the emperor had no clothes!... the evidence did not enable us to conclude that psychoanalysis and psychotherapy had a MEASURABLE EFFECT... there was nothing left whatsoever to support any positive conclusion about the efficacy of psychotherapy!" (Pg. 127-129)

He critiques the book, 'The Benefits of Psychotherapy,' saying, "Clearly we have left the world of reality behind and are entering 'cloud cuckoo' land in which placebo is a method of therapy, in which the shortest possible training ... [is] as effective as the most lengthy training... and in which we can heap outrageous praise on methods of treatment for which there exists in truth no evidence of effectiveness whatsoever!" (Pg. 130-132)

Of course, his most controversial opinions concern intelligence testing. He states, "The large genetic component in producing differences in intelligence stuck in the gullet of egalitarian leftists; what really infuriated them was the extension of this argument by Arthur Jensen to racial differences. I was drawn into this because in 1971 I published a book on 'Race, Intelligence and Education'... I wrote my book in order to introduce some sanity into what had become a political, ideological debate...

"There were strong reasons to interpret this evidence in genetic terms, but equally it was clear that the evidence was not conclusive. African-speaking whites in South Africa used to score much below English-speaking whites a generation or two ago; now the two groups have pretty equal IQ scores. Whatever the reason for this change, it suggests that the differences between groups ... may be susceptible to change... I suffered a fate very similar to [Arthur] Jensen... physical attacks, broken-up meetings, threats of bombings and worse..." (Pg. 215-216)

Eysenck was always a forthright figure, and this book provides some good insights into his life and opinions.

[Renee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first autobiography I have read so when it comes to comparing to others, I cannot comment. As for the content, I was particularly interested in this book due to a background in psychology. I encountered Eysenck to certainly convey a lot of knowledge in this book however it is clearly apparent in his writing how he could be controversial in his views and indeed actions. He comes across as an interesting character I would have liked to have met.

I rated this autobiography 3 stars simply because Eysenck talks much about what others are doing or have done whereas I would have much enjoyed learning more about the individual and the thoughts processes he had.

[Friedrich Mencken · Rating 2 out of 5]

At times I felt like I was reading the memoirs of Baron Munchausen. He read his mothers entire library of German classics as a young boy. He foresaw the geopolitical consequences of the rise of Hitler as a schoolboy. He won a tennis tournament against a player from the German Davis cup team as a teenager even though he never really trained… and on and on it goes with pseudo-modest assertions of accomplishments told with a calm, rational and simple objectivity reminiscent of the great Baron.