Laid out like the Stanford-Binet, but filled with daily life
The record booklet grouped items by year level in Binet's year-scale format, from birth to adulthood. Each item belonged to one of eight categories, but not every year level held items from every category. Item density per category was thin, and critics have long debated whether Doll's grouping was the right one.
Category names from Doll (1935) via the Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology; the one-line descriptions are ours.
An informant answers, the examiner adds up years
The scale was filled in from what someone who knew the person reported they habitually did, not from a test performance. Passed items add up to a social age, and dividing by life age gives the social quotient, the Vineland's answer to the ratio IQ. Mark a fictional child below.
Ten years in use, then a paper, a manual, and decades of reprints
Reference works give 1935, 1936 and 1940 as the publication year. Each date marks something real. Click a marker.
Into the Army, into India, and into the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales
Doll graduated from Cornell and did postgraduate work at New York University and Princeton. His Clinical Studies in Feeble-Mindedness appeared in 1917. In 1925 he followed Stanley Porteus as director of research at the Vineland Training School, where Henry Goddard had opened the research laboratory in 1906. Under Doll it worked on birth injury, EEG methods and adaptive behavior.
He also worked with incarcerated people, and his insistence on individual differences in both groups shaped correctional psychology. Sources disagree on when he left Vineland: 1945 or 1949.
Doll's research programme listed the scale under “the measurement of social incompetence … in the interests of differential diagnosis.” Two people with the same Binet score could live very differently. Today's diagnostic systems, such as DSM-5, require adaptive-behavior deficits, not just a low IQ, before diagnosing intellectual disability.
Sources cited on this page
- [1]Doll, E. A. (1935). A genetic scale of social maturity. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 5(2), 180–190.Wiley Online LibraryUsed for: Date, title, Doll's post, 1935 meeting.
- [2]Review notice: Manual of Directions for the Vineland Social Maturity Scale, by Edgar A. Doll (1935). Journal of Mental Science.cambridge.orgUsed for: Hero cover: 30 pp., 25 cents.
- [3]Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology (Springer): Vineland Social Maturity Scales.link.springer.comUsed for: 117 items, eight categories, year-scale format, uneven density, out of print.
- [4]Correctional Psychology Pioneer: Edgar A. Doll (1889–1968). ResearchGate abstract and citing excerpts.researchgate.netUsed for: Ten years of prior use, 1936 revision, correctional work, research-programme wording.
- [5]Grokipedia. Vineland Social Maturity Scale (secondary summary).grokipedia.comUsed for: Doll's education, 1917 book, research directorship to 1949 (flagged).
- [6]Oxford Reference. Vineland Social Maturity Scale.oxfordreference.comUsed for: 1936 date; 1950 booklet; naming.
- [7]Wikipedia. Vineland Social Maturity Scale (citing Doll 1940 and 1953).en.wikipedia.orgUsed for: 1940 date and its basis; 1953 manual; eight subscales.
- [8]Doll, E. A. (1947). Vineland Social Maturity Scale: Manual of Directions. Minneapolis: Educational Test Bureau.cited in Beck (1987)Used for: 1947 manual.
- [9]Doll, E. A. (1965). Vineland Social Maturity Scale. American Guidance Service.cited in Springer (2022)Used for: 1965 edition.
- [10]Wikipedia. Vineland Training School.en.wikipedia.orgUsed for: Doll succeeding Porteus 1925, research areas, Army adaptation, left 1945.
- [11]A comparative study of VABS-II and VSMS on children and adolescents with intellectual disability (2019).researchgate.netUsed for: Indian adaptation 89 items; VABS-II 383 items; DSM-5 adaptive criterion.
- [12]Springer reference entry: Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale.link.springer.comUsed for: VABS lineage.
- [13]Springer reference entry: Vineland III.link.springer.comUsed for: Vineland-3 (2016) as the third revision of the first standardized adaptive measure.
What changed in this revision
Neither the 1935 article nor the manual was read in full; both are known from publisher records and a 1935 review notice. Structure comes from reference entries. No Doll items are reproduced.
- ADDED1935 article and manual, eight categories, a social-quotient calculator, a dating strip (c. 1925 to 1965), the lineage to Vineland-3, Doll's career, a language note and 13 references.
- CORRECTEDPublication date: the page now shows why sources give 1935, 1936 or 1940.
- REMOVEDUnsourced category and interview claims from the old page; the categories now follow Doll's eight names.
- FLAGGEDDoll's departure from Vineland (1945 vs 1949) and the 1936 “revision” rest on single secondary sources.
- KEPTThe note that this is history, not a self-test. The old milestone list is replaced by clearly illustrative items.
Related historical tests
Goddard opened Vineland's research laboratory in 1906 and brought the Binet scale to America there. Doll's social scale, from the same building a generation later, asked what a Binet score left out.
Doll laid his items out on the Binet year scale and turned the result into a quotient. Social age over life age mirrors Terman's mental age over life age.
Bayley watched babies perform tasks in the clinic; Doll asked informants what children habitually did. Modern Bayley editions added an adaptive scale built on Doll's route.
Goodenough and Doll both looked for ways to assess people that ordinary verbal tests misjudged. One used a drawing; the other used an informant's report of everyday life.
The TAT went after what a person imagines; the Vineland recorded what they actually do. Both appeared in 1935 and both moved psychology beyond ability scores.
Four years later Wechsler's adult scale dropped the ratio quotient that Doll had copied. Adaptive scales later moved to standard scores as well.