Chapter 2: Historical, Cultural, And Legal/Ethical Considerations

A Historical Perspective
Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century
The Nineteenth Century
The Twentieth Century
The measurement of intelligence
The measurement of personality
Measurement in various settings

Legal and Ethical Considerations

The Concerns of the Public
The Concerns of the Profession
Test-user qualifications
Testing people with disabilities
Computerized test administration, scoring, and interpretation

Cultural Considerations
How does culture impinge the results of a psychological test?

Assessment issues concerning linguistic and cultural differences

Definition of group differences

Culture
norms, values, symbols of a group
Who defines what is dysfunctional?

Race
Physical characteristics of a group

Ethnicity
Ancestry, language, religious bonds of a group

Two major approaches to cross-cultural testing

Etic (Universalist)
Emic (Contextual)

Etic (Universalist)
Develop a test within a culture and administer it to persons of different cultures
tests are not be biased toward a specific experience
conceptualization of the target behavior/traits is the same for all groups
behavior/traits are adequately reflected in tests

Emic (Contextual)
Develop different tests (adaptations) within each culture
Validate within each culture (local norms)
 Designed to accurately measure target domain

Focus of Hypothesis
Individual differences (within-group) v. between-group differences
Heterogeneity of groups
Is there a gold standard for measuring behavior?

Culture-fair vs. Culture-free Test

No single test is cultural-free (culture-blind)
Different cultures may emphasize different
abilities or traits as positive or negative
Social problem-solving approaches
Test taking styles
Goal is to take the best of the etic and emic
approach
Some traits behaviors may be universal
Others may be culture-specific

Examples
Crisco is a:
a) patient medicine b) disinfectant
c) toothpaste d) food product

Christy Matthewson is famous as a:

a) writer b) artist c) baseball player
d) comedian

Methodological Issues with Linguistic Minorities

Psychometric equivalence
Sampling
Examiner Biases
Differential Predictive Validity

Levels of Psychometric Equivalence

Metric
Conceptual
Linguistic

Metric
Is there quantitative equivalence in test measurement across cultures?
Do all cultures respond similarly to the test format?
Differences in level of exposure to test format and content

Conceptual
Are the psychological concepts understood differently across different cultures?
Is there equivalence in conceptualization of behaviors and constructs?
 Are differences in psychological attributes related to differences in values and experiences.

Linguistic
Is there equivalence in meaning of psychological concepts?
Is the language and translation appropriate?

Sampling
Inappropriate standardization samples
Under representation in standardization samples
How do we identify groups?

Examiner Biases
Appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication
Rapport vs. intimidation
Culture-based expectancies
Stereotyping

Differential Predictive Validity

Do tests accurately predict the same criterion (outcome) - for culture minorities?
Does the test measure the same concept?
Are there test related factors?
Test bias

Improving Assessment with Linguistic Minorities

Underlying Assumptions should be explicit
Research reports methodologically explicit
Sampling, meta-analysis, effect size, and significance
Multiple measures, multiple methods
Use of expert consultants
Pertinent assessment tools

Test-Taker Rights
The right of informed consent to testing
The right to be informed of test findings
The right not to have privacy invaded
The right to the least stigmatizing label
The right to have findings held confidential