The Politics of Psychological Testing

In September 1954 Fortune magazine ran an article severely criticizing the use of psychological “personality tests” on business executives. It was not simply a run-of-the-mill attack upon science as science, or even upon pseudo-science as science. Instead, it was relatively temperate, and at times even penetrating in its analysis. But a small furor resulted because the article had the temerity to raise questions about the ethical propriety of personality testing, as well as about its validity and usefulness.

Of course, as long as psychological testing was restricted to workers and job applicants, Fortune had seen no cause for alarm. It was the extension of these tests to executives themselves which ap...