The CPA Guidelines for Educational and Psychological Testing states that “A test can only be administered by a person who possesses a sufficient level of proficiency in the language of the test.” Similarly, a test can only be administered TO a person who possesses a sufficient level of proficiency in the language of the test. Anyone can see why it is a bad idea to administer tests to people in a language they haven’t quite mastered yet, but we tend to overlook the issue that lies in testing highly proficient bilinguals.

Let’s assume the scenario of a psychological test taking place at McGill. The test is in English. What about bilingual test-takers with a high level of, or even native, proficiency in both languages? They are clearly capable of doing the test in English, but would the results be different from a test done in their other language? What if the test intends to examine a controversial issue such as the attitude towards the upcoming provincial election, and it is administered to fully bilingual (English and French) students in both languages? Would the results of the two versions differ? My intuitive answer is yes, but unfortunately there is no empirical evidence suggesting that I have guessed right.

There have been studies on the issue of whether personality changes as a function of language, however, as some researchers have always suspected that language can indeed shape cognition. For bilingual speakers, the most pronounced differences between test results are found in self-report personal attribute tests. One note-worthy finding is “Examining Language Effects on the Expression of Personality in a Bilingual Context” by Chen and Bond (2010) which examined the impact of language use on personality as perceived by the self and by others. The study consists of two parts. Part one looks at Hong Kong Chinese-English bilinguals’ self-reported ratings on perceived personality traits, compared to typical native speakers of Chinese and of English. In part two, the same test subjects are rated on their exhibited personality traits (by researchers) during conversations with either Chinese/English native speakers. The ethnicity of the interlocutors also varies. The findings from part one suggest that these bilinguals perceive their two languages to be associated with different personality traits, and results from part two shows that they exhibit different traits when talking in one of the two languages or with an interlocutor whose ethnicity strongly associates with either cultural background.

In conclusion, it’s likely that bilinguals adjust their expressed personality in order to behave appropriately in different linguistic-social contexts. I would venture to guess that if the same tests in two languages are administered to bilinguals, the results would be different. Now the question is, could it be possible that bilinguals also apply this adjustment intrinsically? Perhaps bilinguals can cue a different set of values and perspectives when speaking or reading in different languages with interlocutors of different backgrounds, so essentially they have separate “identities” associated with each of their languages. If this is true than all psychological tests have to take into consideration the dual identities associated with bilinguals.