Do You ‘Believe’ in Horoscopes?
With the fast-growing number of psychological tests, one of the major concerns when developing these tests is its validity — whether the test seems valid or not. Large amounts of research have been conducted to measure the validity of each test. However, it is also important to consider whether the test takers actually believe in the tests. For instance, even though a test is able to predict certain events fairly well, if the test taker does not believe such to be true and does not take the test seriously, the test results may not seem to have any significant interpretations. So, how do we measure whether the test takers believe in the tests? There is actually a term for it already — face validity.
Face validity measures the extent to which the test appears to measure what it has intended to measure. For example, if a depression scale seems to be asking you questions related to depression, then it is considered to have high face validity. Having high face validity is important in most test situations. Like I mentioned earlier, having a high face validity means that the test takers will be more likely to take the test seriously. The test takers will be more likely to respond to the questionnaire with effort and therefore obtain good and useful results.
However, having high face validity is not always necessary. In some cases, it may even be detrimental to the test results. First, when a test is measuring something socially desirable, high face validity may not be so necessary. If you are sure that a test measures extroversion and you want to seem extroverted, you may be likely to answer the test in a way so that you will look more extroverted than you actually are. In turn, the test may not reflect the reality accurately.
Second, pseudo science such as astrology may have reasonable face validity even though past studies may not suggest so. Quite a few people, especially children like reading the horoscope page of a magazine and some even do believe it. However, Past studies have shown that astrology — linking one’s personality to stars and horoscopes — is invalid (Silverman, 1971). Face validity does not seem to be helpful in this case as well.
In conclusion, as the number of tests are increasing, more research should be done into face validity as well as validity. However, since high face validity does not guarantee desired results, people should be cautious while studying face validity.
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Silverman, B. I. (1971). Studies of astrology. The Journal of Psychology, 77(2), 141–149.
