Are psychological tests always useful?

Psychological tests are used to assess constructs such as cognitive and emotional functioning of individuals. The main purpose of these is to see how an individual situates itself compared to the norm group or evaluates his\her abilities. There are various types of psychological tests in order to assess a specific element. For instance there are achievement tests, attitude tests, neuropsychological tests, personality tests, etc.

There is no doubt that in certain situations these tests are relevant and can affect the lives of individuals in a positive way. However, sometimes they discriminate against people. The US army has a test called Armed Forces Qualifying Test, used for selection decisions; those who score below the cut-off cannot be part of the army. In 1996, a study was conducted which obligated the Army to accept some men that scored below the cut-off. The results showed that 40% of those who are normally excluded performed as well as those who scored above the cut-off . This illustrates that an obtained score on a psychological test does not particularly measure something relevant to the task.

However, do we want to take chances in domains that are crucial for the entire society?

The M-PULSE is a psychometric test that individuals must pass in order to be accepted at the Quebec’s National Police School. It is used to detect deviant behavior such as aggressivity and deviant sexual behavior. This test is useful to discriminate against individuals that wont be fit for the employment, in other words that wont abuse of their title and wont badly treat citizens. They must be individuals that we can rely on to protect and serve the city. Even though the reasons behind the use of this test are important it does not mean that it is actually a valid psychological test. This test constitutes several statements to which the examinee has to indicate his\her level of agreement with each item. Furthermore, some people are able to answer the questions in a favorable way even though it doesn’t coincide with their true thoughts.

Thus, psychological tests are not necessarily a good measure in order to detect the optimal candidates. However they are still used in many domains and discriminate people that would be good at the particular job. In other circumstances they do not evaluate accurately.

Should we reconsider the way to select candidates?