Question

Discuss some of the social problems associated with psychological testing

Answer 1

There are several ethical issues in psychological testing

• One major issue in psychological testing is the privacy issue. Confidentiality about the results must be maintained. In some cases the results are misused and the results may be used against an individual. For example, in organizations, the employer may employ such psychological testing and use the results. In some cases, schools administer such tests without the students being aware that they are tested. Thus the results must not be shared to third parties and the results must not be used to discriminate individuals. Rather the point of such tests is to identify weaknesses or strengths and help the individual reach their potential with their permission. Hence the APA has strict guidelines which says that results have to be kept confidential unless in rare situations where keeping the information a secret may affect the individual or they may be a threat to the society
• Legal issues: Organizations are increasingly using psychological assessments to identify the best candidate for a job from a pool of candidates. Thus such tests are misused and the legality of the use of such tests is in question. Thus individuals are denied opportunities to coveted positions in the workplace
• Dehumanization and labeling: certain individuals who are diagnosed with mental illnesses will be labelled as having the disease. For example, a person diagnosed with Schizophrenia may be called by people as schizophrenia and maybe treated poorly. There still exists a stigma for mental illnesses and by labeling individuals, people are less likely to seek help and improve their condition. Individuals fear of being judged and hence deny themselves treatment or help. They fear that the results of their diagnosis will be shared and thus refuse being diagnosed and they fear that others will keep a distance from them. If they find out
• Accessibility to testing: psychological and neurological testing may be expensive for certain individuals and thus they are not diagnosed and will not receive treatment to get help
• Adequacy of tests: even tests may not be psychometrically sound. Certain tests may not even be administered or scored properly thus resulting to false results. Thus accuracy of tests comes into question.