Psychological test

“ Tests like this attempt to provide insight into a client's outlook, personality, concerns, values, and interests. Some tests help to assess concentration, coordination, and problem-solving ability. Results of psychological tests can be helpful to a counselor in deciding how best to treat a client's problems. Testing can be a great time- and money-saver in therapy: the results of a twenty-minute test can give a counselor information about a client that might otherwise be gained only through a number of sessions. ”

“ In selecting a new test which will involve the same mental attitude and call for the exercise of the same psychological functions as are needed in the work itself, we are handicapped by the unreliability of the introspection of the examinee and also by our inadequate ability to recognize, identify and classify psychological functions even when we are confident that these are present. ”

“ A promising way to this end is the inexhaustible association test which we mentioned when we discussed the contributions of the psychological laboratory to the medical diagnosis. A series of short words are spoken to the patient and, as soon as he hears one, he is to pronounce as quickly as possible the first word which comes to his mind. If we use fifty words, we should be able to learn something as to the inner states of the man and as to the working of his mind, if we analyze carefully his particular choices. ”

“ The importance of more accurate psychological tests in studying mental disturbance is well illustrated by comparing the results that may be obtained with the Binet tests with the desultory, unstandardized tests such as one finds in Dr. ”

“ Aside from the obvious uses to which these sense-illusions can be put, they form the basis for a number of psychological experiments to test the abilities of persons in many ways. Here is a test which deals with the range of attention. If you desire to discover the capacity of any person to pay attention to unfamiliar questions or subjects which might at some future time have great importance, try this test. ”

“ Undoubtedly—and especially since the invention of psychological tests to determine the mental state of dullards—many children have been erroneously pronounced feeble-minded when their backwardness is in reality due to remediable causes. The trouble is not with the tests so much as with the inexperience of those who apply them, some of the tests being seemingly so easy of application that in many instances they have been utilised by teachers and others having little or no training in clinical psychology. ”

“ As psychological tests are more and more widely applied and there is consequently accumulated an increasing volume of data which can be collected, classified, and compared, standards become either more firmly established as a result of experience or subject to modification in the light of the wider range of knowledge. In science nothing is final. What psychology offers to-day is a method of mental tests, the soundness of which in principle is unchallenged, though the application in detail of these principles is subject to constant improvement and refinement. ”

“ Properly applied psychological tests would pass over all or nearly all of the acquired knowledge of such individuals about their particular business and related matters, and neglect also, the bulk, at least, of the acquired knowledge of the university man, and so compare merely what might be called two naked brains, the native intelligence of each being the only thing to be measured. ”

“ In order to use the tests intelligently it is necessary to acquaint one’s self thoroughly with the purpose of each test, its correct procedure, and the psychological interpretation of different types of response. ”

“ THE APPLICATIONS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS The intelligent reader has by this time begun to see for himself some of the possibilities opened up by the use of scientific mental tests, and to perceive their applicability in a wide diversity of fields. ”

“ For all practical present-day purposes it is sufficient that psychological tests shall measure mental qualities which are manifested by the individual’s ability to express them by action or speech. 26The classification of individuals relative to one another and with reference to the possession of a particular mental ability or group of abilities is, therefore, necessarily based upon their relative ability to express in some intelligible and unmistakable fashion their mental power and qualities. ”

“ Properly devised and applied psychological tests may conceivably disclose the existence of mental powers and capacities unsuspected or neglected because overshadowed by strong inclinations in other directions; early knowledge of the possession of such capacities may easily direct their possessors into fields in which they can thrive and prosper and achieve far greater happiness and contentment than would ever be possible through a lifetime of striving to do that for which they are not fitted by inheritance. ”

“ The rapid accumulation of data with psychological tests has made it possible to take our first halting steps in the direction of greater definiteness in diagnosis by a larger use of objective methods. This increase in significance of the concept of deficiency is fruitful at once in estimating the size of the social problem and planning means for undertaking the care of these unfortunates. We can discover something of the error in the previous subjective estimates of the frequency of feeble-mindedness. ”

“ Mental tests are of definite value in enabling the observer to arrive at a conclusion regarding the general mental development of the subject, or to investigate some particular psychological function. A too exclusive dependence upon the result of the application of these tests, especially by a layman, would invariably lead to error. A comprehensive survey is necessary, taking into consideration such factors as family history, environment, physical condition, behaviour, temperament, &c. ”

“ It is to be expected that the knowledge so laboriously gained by the psycho-analytic method of investigation would prove of great value in the attempt to solve the psychological problems concerned with the obscurer motives of human action and desire. ”

“ With his desire to supplement the test person betrays a tendency to give the experimenter more than he wants, he even exerts the greatest efforts to seek further mental occurrences in order finally to discover something quite satisfactory. If we translate this elementary observation into the psychology of everyday life, it signifies that the test person has a tendency constantly to give to others more feeling than is required and expected. ”

“ The reader may rest assured that until the mental age of a child is something like four years in arrear of its physical age it is not possible to dogmatically assert, on the basis of the most scientific test yet proposed as a measure of intelligence, that it is feeble-minded. ”

“ But even in those cases where the patient is convinced from the very first of the psychic nature of his illness, a critical survey of the history is very advantageous, since it discloses to him a psychological concatenation of ideas of which he was unaware. In this manner those problems which need special discussion are frequently brought to the surface. Work of this kind may occupy many sittings. ”

“ The psychologist in order to succeed and obtain more efficient and valuable results must keep in mind clearly the fact that the psychic process is a form of life in general, its phenomena are naturally related to the province of biology, and that of the highest part of it. The methods of psychological investigation must follow the line not of the physical, but of the biological sciences. ”

“ One who knows how to apply the tests correctly and who is experienced in the psychological interpretation of responses can in forty minutes arrive at a more accurate judgment as to a subject’s intelligence than would be possible without the tests after months or even years of close observation. ”

“ Expert opinion given on the history of the case is clearly less reliable than such opinion checked by even a crude objective test standard. In Part Two of this study the theoretical background for the percentage definition is compared with that of other quantitative definitions on the basis of the conceptions of mental measurement and mental development.
3. In attempting to suggest methods for diagnosis and control, which our summary of the scientific data makes necessary, we shall be led beyond the evidence presented 242in this study. ”

“ Since all life is made up of situations in which the individual places or finds himself and from which he must extricate himself, and since the broader the mental capacity, the more easily will the individual meet situations as they arise, the ideal mental test is one that presents a situation such as does or might occur in real life, and requires the subject to extricate himself, or at least to indicate his first and immediate impulse toward action should such a situation arise. ”

“ One person who consulted a doctor for nervousness made peculiar responses to stimulus words relating to the family, and was discovered to be much disturbed over his family's opposition to his projected marriage. The free association test is useful rather as giving the experienced psychologist hints to be followed up than as furnishing sure proof of the contents of the subject's mind. ”

“ If the problems of Psychical Research, or that portion of the problems in which investigation seems profitable, are ever to [55] be illuminated and exhibited in an intelligible form, it will only come about when they are investigated by the same methods and in the same spirit as are other psychological problems, when they are studied in connection with and as a part of other general problems of normal and abnormal Psychology. ”

“ That is why I am convinced that the real end of analysis is reached when the patient has acquired adequate knowledge of the method to remain in contact with the unconscious, and sufficient psychological knowledge to be able to understand approximately his ever-changing life-line; otherwise he is not in a position to follow the direction of the libido currents in the unconscious, and thereby to gain conscious support in the development of his individuality. Every serious case of neurosis needs this weapon in order to maintain the cure. ”

“ The problems considered, however, belong equally to normal psychology in that they are problems of psycho-physiological functions and mechanisms. I have made no attempt to develop any particular school of psychological theory but rather, so far as may be, to gather together the knowledge already gained and lay a foundation which can be built upon by any school for the solution of particular problems, especially those of special pathology. ”

“ No generally accepted standards or tests have yet been devised for measuring psychological development. The standards developed by Binet and Simon for mental ability as one phase of psychological age, have been widely tested in this country but have not proven wholly satisfactory. ”

“ There will also be a day when you will be brought to the test—when your very hearts and your inmost souls will melt within you because of the scenes that many of you will witness. Yes, you will be brought to that test, when you will feel as if every thing within you would dissolve. ”

“ When a large number of stimulus words are used, and the responses classified, some persons are found to favor linkages that have a personal significance--"egocentric responses", these are called--while other persons run to connections that are {381} impersonal and objective. Thus the test throws some light on the individual's habits of attention. ”

“ The examination of the mental characteristics of the intelligence which controls the different manifestations is our only purpose, and we have shown that the same laws prevail in all. It is believed that enough has been said to enable the conscientious investigator, who wishes to test the correctness of our hypothesis, to apply its fundamental propositions to all psychic phenomena. ”

“ Whilst psychological investigation finds its subject matter in the bare facts of psychic life, there are two further problems which are conditioned by the antithesis of fact and value as it appears in psychic life, the problem of knowledge, and the problem of evaluation. ”

“ One who has not had a thorough training in the methods of mental testing cannot appreciate how numerous are the opportunities for the unconscious transformation of a test. Many of these are pointed out in the description of the individual tests, but it would be folly to undertake to warn the experimenter against every possible error of this kind. ”

“ A series of group tests with directions and norms follow. The members of the class can use these tests in studying the individual differences in other people. The teacher will find other tests in the author’s Examination of School Children, and in Whipple’s Manual of Mental and Physical Tests.
MENTAL TESTS General Directions
The results of the mental tests in the school will be worse than useless unless the tests are given with the greatest care and scientific precision. Every test should be most carefully explained to the children so that they will know exactly what they are to do. ”

“ Hence, psychometry signifies not merely the measuring of souls and soul capacities, or qualities by our own psychic capacities, but the measurement and judgment of all things conceivable by the human mind; and psychometry means practically measuring by the soul, or grasping and estimating all things which are within the range of human intelligence. ”