Who was Deborah Kallikak?
Goddard’s Kallikak tale—once used to justify eugenics—was factually wrong; always audit historical claims before letting them shape disability policy.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Grodberg et al. (2012) went back to the 1912 Kallikak family study. They checked every fact Goddard used to claim that one bloodline produced only "feeble-minded" people.
The authors used old records, census data, and new interviews. They wanted to see if Goddard’s scary story was true.
What they found
The data were wrong. Many people Goddard labeled as "defective" had normal jobs, families, and school records.
Goddard also left out people who did not fit his story. The paper shows the study was built to sell eugenics, not to tell the truth.
How this fits with other research
Feldman et al. (1999) tells how Pavlov’s lab work shaped Skinner’s ideas. Both papers remind us that today’s tools come from yesterday’s stories, so we must pick the right ones.
de Villiers (1980) warns that few therapists read Skinner first-hand and end up using fuzzy terms like "self-reinforcement." David et al. give a darker example: when we swallow bad history, real people lose rights.
Dougan (1987) shows Shakespeare can teach reinforcement in a fun way. Together these papers say: use history, but check it first—whether the source is a play, a legend, or a famous family tree.
Why it matters
As a BCBA you quote research to decide who gets services and what goals are set. If old myths creep into your rationale, you can accidentally support lower expectations or even deny therapy. Read the primary data, ask who was counted and who was ignored, and be ready to drop any citation that falls apart under light. Your ethical code demands nothing less.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The Kallikak Family was, along with The Jukes: A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease, and Heredity, one of the most visible eugenic family narratives published in the early 20th century. Published in 1912 and authored by psychologist Henry Herbert Goddard, director of the psychological laboratory at the Vineland Training School for Feebleminded Children in Vineland, New Jersey, The Kallikak Family told the tale of a supposedly "degenerate" family from rural New Jersey, beginning with Deborah, one of the inmates at the Training School. Like most publications in the genre, this pseudoscientific treatise described generations of illiterate, poor, and purportedly immoral Kallikak family members who were chronically unemployed, supposedly feebleminded, criminal, and, in general, perceived as threats to "racial hygiene." Presented as a "natural experiment" in human heredity, this text served to support eugenic activities through much of the first half of the 20th century. This article reviews the story of Deborah Kallikak, including her true identity, and provides evidence that Goddard's treatise was incorrect.
Intellectual and developmental disabilities, 2012 · doi:10.1352/1934-9556-50.2.169