HISTORICAL, CULTURAL AND LEGAL/ETHICAL WILHEM MAX WUNDT - First experimental psychology
CONSIDERATIONS laboratory in University of Leipzig
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: ANTIQUITY TO THE 19TH
CENTURY
- Tests and testing programs first came into being
in China
- Testing was instituted as a means of selecting
who, of many applicants would obtain
government jobs (Civil service)
- The job applicants are tested on proficiency in
endeavors such as music, archery, knowledge
and skill etc.
GRECO-ROMAN WRITINGS (Middle Ages)
- World of evilness
- Deficiency in some bodily fluid as a factor
believed to influence personality
- Hippocrates and Galen
RENAISSANCE
Christian von Wolff – anticipated psychology as a
science and psychological measurement as a specialty
within that science
CHARLES DARWIN AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
- Tests designed to measure these individual
differences in ability and personality among
people
- “Origin of Species” chance variation in species
would be selected or rejected by nature
according to adaptivity and survival value.
“survival of the fittest”
FRANCIS GALTON - Explore and quantify individual
differences between people.
- Classify people “according to their natural gifts”
- Displayed the first anthropometric laboratory
KARL PEARSON - Developed the product moment
correlation technique.
- His work can be traced directly from Galton
- Focuses more on relating to how people were
similar, not different from each other.
JAMES MCKEEN CATELL - Individual differences in
reaction time. Coined the term mental test
CHARLES SPEARMAN - Originating the concept of test
reliability as well as building the mathematical
framework for the statistical technique of factor
analysis
VICTOR HENRI - Frenchman who collaborated with Binet
on papers suggesting how mental tests could be used to
measure higher mental processes
EMIL KRAEPELIN - Early experimenter of word
association technique as a formal test
LIGHTNER WITMER - “Little known founder of clinical
psychology”. Founded the first psychological clinic in the
U.S.
PSYCHE CATELL - Daughter of James Cattell. Cattel
Infant Intelligence Scale (CIIS) & Measurement of
Intelligence in Infants and Young Children
RAYMOND CATTELL - Believed in lexical approach to
defining personality which examines human languages
for descriptors of personality dimensions
Birth of the first formal tests of intelligence
- Testing shifted to be of more understandable
relevance/meaning
THE MEASUREMENT OF INTELLIGENCE
- Binet created first intelligence to test to identify
mentally retarded school children in Paris
(individual)
- Binet-Simon Test has been revised over again
- Group intelligence tests emerged with need to
screen intellect of WWI recruits
David Wechsler – designed a test to measure adult
intelligence test, for him Intelligence is a global capacity
of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally
and to deal effectively with his environment.
Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Scale  Wechsler Adult
Intelligence Test – was revised several times and
extended the age range of testtakers from young
children through senior adulthood.
THE MEASUREMENT OF PERSONALITY
- Field of psychology was being too test oriented
- Clinical psychology was synonymous to mental
testing
- ROBERT WOODWORTH – develop a measure of
adjustment and emotional stability that could
be administered quickly and efficiently to
groups of recruits
- To disguise the true purpose of the test,
questionnaire was labeled as Personal Data
Sheet
- He called it Woodworth Psychoneurotic
Inventory – first widely used self-report test of
personality
THE MEASUREMENT OF PERSONALITY
Self-report test:
Advantages: Respondents best qualified
Disadvantages: Poor insight into self
- One might honestly believe something about
self that isn’t true
- Unwillingness to report seemingly negative
qualities
Projective test: individual is assumed to project onto
some ambiguous stimulus (inkblot, photo, etc.) his or
her own unique needs, fears, hopes, and motivations
Ex.) Rorschach inkblot
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE : THE 20TH CENTURY
- Culture: ‘the socially transmitted behavior
patterns, beliefs, and products of work f a
particular population, community, or group of
people’
- Evolving Interest in Culture-Related Issues
- Goddard tested immigrants and found most to
be feebleminded. It is invalid; overestimated
mental deficiency, even in native English-
speakers
- Lead to nature-nurture debate about what
intelligence tests actually measure. Needed to
“isolate” the cultural variable
- Culture-specific tests: tests designed for use
with people from one culture, but not from
another minorities still scored abnormally low
ex.) loaf of bread vs. tortillas
today tests undergo many steps to ensure its suitable
for said nation
- take test - takers reactions into account
CULTURE AND ASSESSMENT
1. Verbal Communication
- Examiner and examinee must speak the same
language
- Especially tricky with infrequently used
vocabulary or unusual idioms employed
- Translator may lose nuances of translation or
give unintentional hints toward more desirable
answer
- Also requires understanding of culture
SOME ISSUES REGARDING CULTURE AND ASSESSMENT
1. Nonverbal Communication and Behavior
- Different between cultures
Ex.) meaning of not making eye contact
- Body movement could even have physical
cause
Psychoanalysis: Freud’s theory of personality and
psychological treatment which stated that symbolic
significance is assigned to many nonverbal acts.
- Timing tests in cultures not obsessed with
speed
- Lack of speaking could be reverence for elders
SOME ISSUES REGARDING CULTURE AND ASSESSMENT
What happen when group systematically differ in terms
of scores on a particular test?
 If a test is used to evaluate a candidate’s ability to do a
job, one point of view is that the test should do just
that, regardless of the group membership of the
testtaker.
What criteria must be met to do this job?
affirmative action: voluntary and mandatory efforts to
combat discrimination and promote equal opportunity
in education and employment for all
Psychology, tests, and public policy
TESTS AND GROUP MEMBERSHIP
- Laws are rules that individuals must obey for
the good of the society as a whole—or rules
thought to be for the good of society as a
whole. Some laws are and have been relatively
uncontroversial.
- Whereas a body of laws is a body of rules, a
body of ethics is a body of principles of right,
proper, or good conduct.
- To the extent that a code of professional ethics
is recognized and accepted by members of a
profession, it defines the standard of care
expected of members of that profession. In this
context, we may define standard of care as the
level at which the average, reasonable, and
prudent professional would provide diagnostic
or therapeutic services under the same or
similar conditions.
LEGAL AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATION
The Concerns of the Public
Beginning in world war I, fear that tests were only
testing the ability to take tests
Legislation
Minimum competency testing programs: formal testing
programs designed to be used in decisions regarding
various aspects of students’ educations
Truth-in-testing legislation: state laws to provide
testtakers with a means of learning the criteria by which
they are being judged
Litigation
Daubert ruling made federal judges the gatekeepers to
determining what expert testimony is admitted
This overrode the Frye policy which only admitted
scientific testimony that had won general acceptance in
the scientific community.
LEGAL AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATION
The Concerns of the Profession
Test-user qualifications: Who should be allowed to use
psych tests?
Level A: tests or aids that can adequately be
administered, scored, and interpreted with the aid of
the manual and a general orientation to the kind of
institution or organization in which one is working
Level B: tests or aids that require some technical
knowledge of test construction and use and of
supporting psychological and educational fields
Level C: tests and aids requiring substantial
understanding of testing and supporting psych fields
with experience
The Concerns of the Profession
- Testing people with disabilities
- Difficulty in transforming the test into a form
that can be taken by testtaker
- Transferring responses to be scorable
- Meaningfully interpreting the test data
Computerized test administration, scoring, and
interpretation simple, convenient easily copied,
duplicated insufficient research to compare it to pencil-
and-paper versions
- value of computer interpretation is
questionable
- unprofessional, unregulated “psychological
testing” online
The Rights of Testtakers (The right of informed
consent)
 - right to know why they are being evaluated, The Rights of Testtakers (The right to the least
how test data will be used and what stigmatizing label )
information will be released to whom
- The standards advise that the least stigmatizing
- may be obtained by parent or legal
labels should always be assigned when
representative
reporting test results.
- must be in written form:
- general purpose of the testing
- the specific reason it is being undertaken
- general type of instruments to be administered
- revealing this information before the test can
contaminate the results
- deception only used if absolutely necessary
- don’t use deception if it will cause emotional
distress
- fully debrief participants

The Rights of Testtakers (The right to be informed of

test findings)

- Formerly test administrators told to give

participants only positive information
- No realistic information is required
- Tell test takers as little as possible about the
nature of their performance on a particular test.
So that the examinee would leave the test
session feeling pleased and satisfied.
- Test takers have the right also to know what
recommendations are being made as a
consequence of the test data

The Rights of Testtakers (The right to privacy and

confidentiality)

- Private right: “recognizes the freedom of the

individual to pick and choose for himself the
time, circumstances, and particularly the extent
to which he wishes to share or withhold from
others his attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and
opinions”
- Privileged information: information protected
by law from being disclosed in legal proceeding.
Protects clients from disclosure in judicial
proceedings. Privilege belongs to the client not
the psychologist.
- Confidentiality: concerns matters of
communication outside the courtroom
- Safekeeping of test data: It is not a good policy
to maintain all records in perpetuity