Am I Dumb? The Individual Ethical Repercussions of Intelligence Testing
The purpose of this blog is in part to come to “appreciate that testing is everywhere,” in accordance with Professor Stotland’s innovative approach to learning about psychological tests. We are always informally testing, and “psychological tests are an extension and formalization of this natural inquiry.”
And it is this formalization that has power.
I recently completed the Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale, and the first question got me thinking about testing factors that can contribute to determining one’s self-esteem. The question reads: “I feel that I am a person of worth, at least on an equal plane with others.”
How do I determine if I am on “equal plane with others?”
Being a university student naturally leads me to translate this statement to basically be asking, “am I at least on equal plane with others intellectually?” We are constantly testing ourselves and others and creating comparative inferences, even if it is based on “informal, unsystematic and unscientific” testing. So what better way to determine the answer to this question than with a formalized intelligence test?
It is difficult for the average person to discern whether a test is “scientific and systematic,” but versions of formalization are ubiquitous on the internet.
My curiosity about the ethics of intelligence testing led me to search the internet in order to gauge what sort of material is available for the consumption of the general public. As I selected the ‘search’ button, I considered some of the motivations people might have to perform the same search I had just executed.
Perhaps someone is seeking validation. Maybe someone is striving to define self-worth, or hoping to know what steps to take next and whether they are capable of taking them.
With these possibilities in mind, I clicked on one of the first titles that appeared from my search: “Am I dumb?” Before you begin the quiz, you are prompted with the statement, “Bet you aren’t as smart as you think you are.”
That’s reassuring.
Even without this pessimistic rhetoric, there are a deluge of intelligence tests that — notwithstanding whether they are “scientific” and “systematic” — assign the test-taker a number upon completion of the test. A number that can be easily applied in partial or entire response to the question of self-worth or decision-making. A number that can incline the lay test-taker to think that a numerical result must mean an objective truth.
Some tests may be obviously unreliable or invalid in the eyes of the average person, however, many tests are not so easily discernable.
While the institutional ethical concerns for intelligence tests are many, warranting the plethora of policies derived from the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists, the question of individual psychological impact is noteworthy.
Testing is everywhere. Formalization is abundant — and influential.
Inferences are impossible to fully control. But as we as test-takers, test-makers, and test-disseminators develop our appreciation that testing is everywhere, a part of that appreciation should involve growing in grasping and responding to the individual ethical implications, since there is power in formalization.
