Question

1. Explain how bias can affect personality and psychopathology testing. Differentiate between the types of bias that may exist.

Answer 1

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary. Also, there are more than 50 different types of bias. I have chosen to focus the response on the bias that would help me differentiate between personality and psychopathology.

(Answer) (1) Bias is a preference towards an individual or idea that might not be an entirely based on a cogent or objective reasoning.

(2) Bias tends to even contaminate the facts in the field of research. Personality and psychopathological studies also are strewn with bias from the researcher as well as the test subjects.

(3) There are several types of cognitive bias, for instance, conformity bias, in-group bias etc. However, the types of bias that affects personality testing are generally different from the types of bias that test of patients with psychological disorders may have.

Bias that can affect personality:

1. Response Bias – By this form of bias, an individual would generally respond to a question or scenario in a way that may not be true but rather in a way that satisfies a preference.
2. Cultural Bias – Adherence to a particular response simply because it satisfies one’s cultural convictions is known as cultural bias.
3. Ethnic Bias – According to this form of bias, an individual would generally formulate the same opinion that their ethnic group would agree with.

Bias that can affect psychopathology:

1. Psychiatric practice – Sometimes, a bias may be simply because of the field of study that is involved. For instance, a neurologist may diagnose a patient with neurological issues whereas an oncologist may suggest cancer. This bias may be unintentional and more because of the way symptoms are perceived.
2. Financial influence – Sometimes research is financed by certain institutions that desire certain outcomes in order to support their cause. Researchers may end up adopting methods or biases that nudge the results in the direction of the desired outcome of their financers.
3. Institutional influences – When research is conducted within and for a certain institute, it would be generally in aid of a larger body of work. In order to make this body of work successful, the approval of researchers may be required. This is when researchers may adopt biased methods in order to please the institution and obtain results that are in adherence to the greater cause.