Psychological testing: methods, applications, and assessment

Psychological Testing

Many hold or assume that there is nothing harmful or hurtful about psychological testing. However, that viewpoint is not remotely absolute and the scholarly literature that exists out there describes reasons why testing (or certain forms of testing) are less than wise to use and employ. Two general questions will be answered about the subject. The first question is how tests can be for good and how other tests can be borderline insidious in nature. Whether a test is good, bad or should be eliminated will all be covered. The other question to be answered is whether it is important to know the historical roots of psychological testing. While psychological testing has some outstanding and very effective uses, there are certain times when tests can do more harm than good.

Questions Answered

One example where testing can be a good thing is when there is concern that an adult or child is mentally ill. In that case, there are tests and questions that can be posed to figure out what precisely is ailing someone or if the person just has general self-control issues that can be corrected and shaped. However, some questions about this subject are shades of gray. There are some that suggest that the use of religious principles (e.g. Christians) as part of testing is simply not right because there is a perceived chasm between what scientists and psychologists hold true and how Christians face the same questions. Indeed, there are people that are extremely religious and devout and they tend to use their faith as a means to help them along the recovery process (Miner, Dowson & Malone, 2014). One example that was extremely dubious and almost certainly harmful was the test done on "Little Albert." Pavlov sought to prove that the Pavlov's dog lesson could be done with humans as well. However, the intentionally scary and perhaps vile way in which they tested the theory was quite nasty. That all being said, psychology testing should still be used but it should always be done in an ethical and proper manner (VanElzakker, Dahlgren, Davis, Dubois & Shin, 2014)

As for the second question, it is extremely important to know the historical context of psychology and how the field became what it is today. There were times where aggressive shock therapy, attempts to "fix" homosexuals back to being straight and so forth were pervasive (McGeorge, Carlson & Toomey, 2015). However, the body of knowledge has risen sharply since then. Even so, there are many people (including some psychologists) that are stuck in their old ways and/or they are otherwise polluting the field of psychology. Just as having to know the United States' handling of blacks and other minorities in one's own mind when assessing the struggle of current minorities is a good example. Someone who looks at a segregated neighborhood and just assumes it's what the people really want will probably be aware of how blacks were treated so nastily, even after slavery was ended. Not until the 1950's did real progress start to be made (Gotfe, 2014). Coming back to psychology, there are skeletons in that closet as well and learning about those missteps and what should be done instead from a clinical standpoint is extremely important (McGeorge, Carlson & Toomey, 2015).