Problems with Psychological Testing for the Behavior Analyst: Issues of Philosophical Dissensions Beyond Semantics

Date of Award

7-6-2015

Document Type

Undergraduate Capstone Project

Degree Name

Psy.D.

Organizational Unit

Graduate School of Professional Psychology

First Advisor

Ragnar Storaasli

Second Advisor

John McNeil

Third Advisor

Michael Stein

Keywords

Behavior analysis, Psychological testing, Assessment, Philosophy

Abstract

The qualification to administer traditional psychological tests is largely privileged to doctoral level mental health providers and represents an important demarcation between clinicians with a doctorate or masters degree. Furthermore, psychological testing has increasingly become an emphasized training standard in doctoral clinical psychology programs. For the behavior analyst, however, traditional psychological assessment is at odds with the philosophical and theoretical foundations of contextual behavioral science and according therapeutic applications. Such odds are not just semantics that can be accommodated with choice of terminology, but rather begin at the level of worldview. Differences in worldview between behavior analysis and mainstream contemporary psychology are discussed with emphasis on major distinctions in relation to language, causality, and science plans, and how these distinctions directly apply to psychological assessment. The paper concludes with a discussion about how the behavioral analyst can approach testing given some fundamental philosophical dissensions that cannot be modified or translated via semantic changes.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. Permanently suppressed.

Extent

33 pages

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