Legal and Ethical Issues Associated with Psychological Testing

Ethical Issues Associated with Psychological Testing

One ethical issue associated with psychological testing is informed consent, which means that a patient or client must give his or her consent to be tested on.  He or she can also, at any time, withdraw consent.  The psychologist performing the testing must explain to the subject, in language that he or she can understand, what the test entails.  Informed consent is extremely important in the world of psychological testing.  It is both ethical for the client to be informed, but may also cause legal problems within a psychological institute if informed consent is not obtained. There are exceptions to this issue such legally mandated assessments and job seeker assessments (Hogan, 2007).  This may make it harder for a psychologist because some people may not consent even though it is in his or her best interest.

A second ethical issue is confidentiality, which entails that the test results cannot be shared with anyone unless the client gives consent, and even then the information may only be shared with a qualified professional.  The test results are to only be used for that which the test was purposed for.  Confidentiality is extremely important and gives great credit to the field of psychological testing.  The field would not be where it is today if confidentiality had not been taken seriously.  Clients would not trust psychologists if confidentiality was not upheld.  The only way a psychologist is allowed to break confidentiality is if he or she believes that the client or someone else is in great danger.  

Legal Issues Associated with Psychological TestingA second legal issue associated with psychological testing is discrimination.  A psychologist may not implement psychological testing on an individual if the results will be biased based on the individuals race, gender, national origin, or religion.  Hogan describes the term discriminant validity as “evidence showing that performance on a test has a relatively low correlation with measures of constructs expected to have a low correlation with the trait of interest” (Hogan, 2007, p. 653).  Psychologists have to be careful when dealing with their patients and cover themselves by making sure that they can prove the test to valid and possibly job related. 

Once legal issue associated with psychological testing is disabilities and the accommodations that psychologists must make to ensure that disabled people are being treated fairly.  “Disabled” is a broad term and does not only include physical handicapped.   Psychological testing must be modifiable to accommodate disabilities, which may include larger print text.  One accommodation that has stirred a lot of controversy is the extending of time limits on tests (Hogan, 2007).  This is a matter of the individual and whether or not it is actually making the test fair by extending the time limit.  Hogan (2007) states that accommodations made to tests should render the norms and validity of the test the same for non-disabled and disabled examinees.    Both of these legal issues make the world of psychological testing more complex but only for the better of the examinees.  All people should be treated fairly, which is ultimately what these laws are in place for. 

Civil Rights Act of 1964

In my opinion the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had the largest impact on the field of psychological testing.  This was a turning point for America and psychological testing, which gives all citizens equal protection under the law.  The Civil Rights act has also been popularly called the Equal Employment Opportunity Act.  This was because psychological testing could have been and can still be used to exclude certain races or genders from getting or keeping a job.  The law protects people from psychological testing that may exclude them from certain opportunities such as jobs, property, or liberty.  This law gave minorities ground the stand on when it came to standing up for themselves and making a way for them in the world.  In regards to psychological testing it has put boundaries on the logic behind tests so that they must be standardized to not exclude any race, religion, gender, or nationality.  The Civil Rights Act ensures that psychological testing cannot be used against the best interest of a person, which gives clients confidence that psychological testing will be for their benefit.  Personally, I like the feeling of knowing that I will not be assessed in any way that would show my race or gender.

References

Hogan, T. P. (2007). Psychological testing: A practical introduction (2^nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.