Chapter 6 - Culture and Methodology in Personality Assessment

Abstract

Multicultural psychology deals with etics or manifestations of group differences that may be uniquely shaped by a variety of local or national conditions, including identity, oppression, and power. The legacy of human suffering attending these issues and their partisan nature has demanded a wider range of historic and contemporary methodologies, both qualitative and quantitative. This chapter provides the examination of bias in research. Biased methodology has a history in any nation that applies a scientific model developed by the majority culture to all cultural elements within the society. This methodology has been focused on affirming prediction and control elements of a Euro-American worldview. Bias is omnipresent and has been found in the assumptions made for conventional statistical tests as well as their interpretation, in research designs used for group comparisons and in selection and sampling of research participants. Bias has also been demonstrated in the instruments used for personality assessment. The Rorschach Comprehensive System, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, and the Thematic Apperception Test are used to illustrate examples of methodology in test construction, interpretation, and use of normative data that can either exacerbate or reduce bias. The sources of bias can be remediated by both interim and long-range considerations of the role of culture in assessment research and practice. On an interim basis, research bias can be remediated by more ethical use of research design and statistical treatments of data as well as by the manner in which standard assessment instruments are used in practice. Finally, an assessment methodology is discussed that supplements test validation per se but can serve to reduce bias in describing or diagnosing persons within a multicultural society.