Reasons for Psychological Testing

¶ … socio-cultural issues that have the greatest influence on the administration of psychological testing. One social and legal issue that arisen in the recent literature is the use of psychological testing in conjuncture with genetic testing. Indeed, the article notes that there are ethical challenges and training implications for current and future psychologists in the field. The article notes that modern advances in the field of genome sequencing and genetic testing have created issues and ethical challenges relating to the general field of psychology.

The reason there is an issue is that, more and more, patients will know their family's genetic history and will present with a disorder in mind rather than allowing for diagnosis to run its course. Further, this knowledge of the family history can lead to undue stress and problems with the patients themselves. There are further concerns that can rise from that overall paradigm including values conflicts an value system disparity, confidentiality/privilege/record keeping issues, informed consent concerns and competence/training concerns (Richmond-Rakerd, 2013).

At a broader level, there are both merits and implications (good and bad) of genetic testing but they have generated a lot of debate and in a lot of directions. When it comes to psychological testing and care in general, there is a fear of discrimination and a form of "eugenics" that can be used to clean the proverbial genetic pool.

Richmond-Rakerd notes that psychologists have an ethical responsibility to act in a conscientious of their potential to possess bias against the individuals who differ from them in any number of ways and forms. Further muddying the waters is the fact that overall therapist and psychologist perceptions about genetic testing are largely unknown. This leads to a lot of ambiguity regarding just how pervasive a problem these biases and influences relating to genetic testing really are (Richmond-Rakerd, 2013).

Another identified issue that is much more specific to psychological testing than anything else is the ethics behind how much the testing is used in general. Indeed, some say that there is overuse and misuse of psychological testing. Some go further and suggest that "less is more" and that testing should not be used too commonly or too generally as there are many situations where it is not effective or simply not needed.

For example, attorneys and judges can over-rely on the results of psychological tests when it comes to the deciding of legal cases, the deciding of competency and so forth. The use of testing has also become very computerized and automated in nature. The lack of personal observation and a personal touch can lead to a loss of efficacy. However, the overall controversy regarding psychological testing is not remotely new (Sander & Katz, 2013).

To answer the "why," there are issues with the way in which tests are used, how often they are use and how the results are applied afterwards. Question Two As for the primary and overarching reason or reasons that psychologists use tests and measurements, the literature that exists out there is pretty clear on that as well, although it depends on where one looks.

Per the work of Bram, it is established and known to be true that psychologists devote a considerable amount of time and effort to psychological testing and the associated report-writing that goes with it. The most significant and common reason for the testing is to come to a conclusion as to what is or is not going on with a given patient. This can be vexing and time-consuming in some instances because the conclusion may be wrong or it may be incomplete.

However, the aim is generally to focus and fixate on what is causing a person to behave as they do and/or the psychological traits and factors, either it be nature or nurture, which underpins those actions. Regardless, Bram asserts that testing is about making nuanced inferences and conclusions about the therapeutic alliance, potential resistances that may arise, likely transferences that have or will likely occur, the same precise thing for counter-transferences and the overall conceptualization of treatment on the supportive/expressive continuum (Bram, 2013).

Chong (2015) notes that testing is often also used for the verification and theorizing related to mental and psychological models. Indeed, Chong's work pertained to the testing of a theoretical model with cultural and psychological correlates. In other words, there was a testing of how culture and psychological cues and results can correlate or not correlate based on the traits and background of the person being tested. Different disorders and conditions would seem to manifest and reveal themselves differently based on the cultural background of the person involved.

The only way to spot those trends and results is to test wide swaths of people in those groups so as to spot what cultures tend to fall in which directions when it comes to.