ABSTRACT
Introduction It is undeniable that psychological tests have a public image problem, since grave doubts have been expressed in both the popular press and the psychological journals about the ‘fairness’ of various psychological tests. For example, Kamin (1974) drew the attention of a generation of psychologists to the way in which some early ability tests were used to identify ‘feeble-minded’ immigrants to the USA during the 1920s and argued passionately that any attempt to assess individual differences was and is unfair and discriminatory. And, in the case of those early tests, Kamin was completely correct. Rather than being tests of abstract reasoning, these tests included items assessing factual knowledge about the American culture (e.g. knowledge of past presidents). It is unsurprising that immigrants (many of whom could not even read or speak English, far less have a knowledge of the culture of a nation on the other side of the globe) failed to show their true ability on these tests. The tests were unfair to members of these cultures in that they grossly underestimated their true potential.
