---
aliases:
- Richard J. Herrnstein
- Richard Hernstein
category: Scientists & Researchers
created: 2026-09-22
died: 1994-09-13
location: Belmont, Massachusetts
relations:
- end: 1994
  fn: 1
  role: Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology
  start: 1958
  type: employed_by
  with: '[[Harvard University]]'
- fn: 3
  role: co-author with Charles Murray
  start: 1994
  type: participant_in
  with: '[[The Bell Curve]]'
summary: Harvard psychologist whose 1971 Atlantic article argued that social standing
  would come to rest on inherited intelligence, and who co-wrote The Bell Curve with
  Charles Murray before dying in September 1994.
tags:
- Person
- Psychology
- Harvard
- Eugenics
- BellCurve
updated: 2026-09-22
---

Richard J. Herrnstein grew up in New York City, the child of Hungarian immigrants, attended the City College of New York, and took a graduate degree at [Harvard](/organizations/harvard-university/) in 1955. After three years in the Army he joined the Harvard faculty in 1958, and at his death he was Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology, having taught there for 36 years, the longest tenure in his department. In the 1970s he linked rewards and behavior in work on learning, motivation, addiction and economic choice. He served on the Faculty Council and the Administrative Board. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in early June 1994 and died at his home in Belmont, Massachusetts, on the night of September 13, 1994, weeks before the publication of *[The Bell Curve](/concepts/the-bell-curve/),* written with [Charles Murray](/people/charles-murray/).[^1]

### "I.Q."

In "I.Q.," published in *The Atlantic Monthly* in September 1971, Herrnstein drew on figures compiled by Arthur Jensen from studies of identical twins raised apart to argue that inheritance accounted for about 80 percent of individual differences in I.Q., and set out a syllogism in four steps: if differences in mental abilities are inherited, if success requires those abilities, and if earning and prestige depend on success, "then social standing (which reflects earnings and prestige) will be based to some extent on inherited differences among people." In a society dismantling its social and legal barriers, he argued, a person's standing would be determined "pretty much on the basis of what he is born with." Of the "Galbraith plan," whose author, he said, held that all ethnic groups and races have equal potential for achievement, he told the *Crimson:* "I don't know that's not true, but I sure as hell do know that he certainly doesn't know if it is." His colleague B.F. Skinner called the article "a good exposition to date of the problem," a "social question, rather than a race question."[^2] His later books included *IQ and Meritocracy* and *Crime and Human Nature.*[^1]

### The Bell Curve

*The Bell Curve,* which Herrnstein and Murray published with the Free Press in 1994, argued that intelligence is substantially heritable, that it predicts life outcomes better than socioeconomic background, and that measured differences between racial groups have a partly genetic basis. In *The New York Review of Books* in December 1994, Charles Lane found that it cited thirteen scholars who had received more than 4 million dollars from the [Pioneer Fund](/organizations/pioneer-fund/) and seventeen contributors to *[Mankind Quarterly](/organizations/mankind-quarterly/).*[^3]

[^1]: Arden-Smith, Tara H. "Herrnstein Dies of Cancer." *The Harvard Crimson,* September 16, 1994. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1994/9/16/herrnstein-dies-of-cancer-ppierce-professor/
[^2]: "Herrnstein in 'The Atlantic' Predicts American Meritocracy." *The Harvard Crimson,* September 22, 1971, summarizing Herrnstein, Richard J. "I.Q." *The Atlantic Monthly,* September 1971. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1971/9/22/herrnstein-in-the-atlantic-predicts-american/
[^3]: Herrnstein, Richard J., and Charles Murray. *The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life.* Free Press, 1994; Lane, Charles. "The Tainted Sources of 'The Bell Curve.'" *The New York Review of Books,* December 1, 1994. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1994/12/01/the-tainted-sources-of-the-bell-curve/