Question

Book: The Story of Psychology

The measurers chapter is all about how people measure up to others and how testing of human minds began.

Discussion: What were the origins of testing? Was testing for good or for ill in the early years? Please describe some of the dark sides and bright sides. And what about now? Please use historical and scientific evidence to argue the pros and cons of measuring and comparing human minds in the beginning and in the modern day. How could we improve the situation for the future?

Answer 1

It is believed that the first tests may have been conducted by the imperial examination system in China. But the modern mental testing began in France somewhere in the 19^th century. Francis Galton, an Englishman, first used terms like psychometrics and eugenics. He developed methods for measuring intelligence which were based on non-verbal sensory motor tests. The Binet – Simon test during the 19^th century focusses on the mental retardation among school children. This was jointly developed by French Psychologist, Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon along with Victor Henri.

Testing was generally done for the ill during the early 18^th and 19^th century when the measurement of the skull and physiognomy was done to assess the personality based on a person’s outer appearances. But in most cases, the outer appearances didn’t bring about the true picture of the person. Hence led to misleading data. However such tests were later replaced by more empirical tests in the future to get an accuracy in the findings.

Mental or psychological tests are used for the assessment of the taker by a skilled psychologist. But such tests depend on one answering the questions in a truthful and honest way. There are some tests, like the Rorschach test, which does not provide any hint to the test taker and hence it gets difficult or rather impossible for one to manipulate with the result of the test. Such tests make it tough for one to lie. This is a great benefit of testing. The other advantage of such tests is the scientific consistency throughout the test. For example, an aptitude test is used to assess the level of knowledge one has on a certain topic.

Although one disadvantage may be that in some cases, the tests do not actually measure what they are supposed to. So it is best to know always keep assessing the purpose of taking the test, get results and outcomes of tests and recognize & understand the tests thoroughly. Although there are various tests conducted for various purposes, it is important for one to rightly the assess the purpose and the subject of the test. Because the test attempt to measure somethings that are not observable in certain tests, hence there will always be a gap between what was attempted to measure and what was measured. There are going to be cultural biases as well. Tests in English may be a problem for people who do not speak or understand English and if translated to their language may not bring about the correct meaning of certain things.

In today’s time, there are many tests conducted to understand and measure human mind. The level of accuracy has increased over the period. There are psychometrics tests conducted by many companies before they hire the person. This helps them to understand the person well and the roles and responsibilities one can take up in the company in future.