Read Case 9.2, Testing for Honesty. Then make two separate posts. First, answer the following questions:

How useful or informative do you think psychological and honesty tests are? Is their use a reasonable business policy? Assuming that tests like those described are valid and reliable, are they fair?

Do you think tests like these invade privacy and, if so, that this invasion is justified? Explain why or why not?

CASE 9.2 Testing for Honesty AT CHRISTMASTIME, HOLIDAY SHOPPERS DROP branches found that money also seemed to be disapall sorts of things into the Salvation Army's red kettles: pearing out of its kettles. Worried about theft by its kettle diamond rings, lottery tickets, casino chips-even workers, Army officials sought the assistance of Dr. John Viagra. 1"9 Most people, of course, put in coins and dollar Jones, director of research for London House Management bills. Some years ago, however, one of the Army's local Consultants. London House is one of several companies that market an argumert with someone and later wished you had sald honesty tests for prospective employees." Employee thet is something else?" If you were to answer no, you would be on a serious problem for many companies. Honesty-test makers your way to taling. Other questions that may face the test say the best way to deal with it is betore workers are hired-by taker are "How strong is your conscience?" "How often do you subjecting them to a pre employment psychological test that teel guily?" "Do you always tell the truth?" "Do you occasionwili idently those prospective employees who are likely to steal. ally have thoughts you would't want made public?" "Does James Walls, one of the founders of Stanton Corporation, everyone steal a inttle?" "Do you enioy stories of successful which has offered witten honesty tests for twenty-five years, crimes?" "Have you ever been so intrigued by the cleverness says that dishonest job applicants are clever at hoodwinking of a thef that you hoped the person would escape detection?" potential employers in a job interview. "They have a way of Or consider questions like "Is an employee who takes it easy at conducting themseves that is probably superior to the low- work cheating his empioyer?" or "Doyou think a person should risk person. They have learned what it takes to be accepted be fred by a company if it is found that he heiped employees and how to overcome the normal interview strategy," he says. Cheat the company out of overtime once in a while?" These ask "The high-risk person will get hired unless there is a way to you for your reaction to hypothetical dishonest situations. "If screen him." For this reason, Walls maintains, written, objec- you are a particularty kind-hearted person who isn't sufficiently tive tests are needed to weed out the crooks. punitive, you fall," says Lewis Malty, director of the workplace Milions of written honesty tests are given annualy, thanks rights office at the American Civil Lberties Union. "Mother to congressional restrictions on polygraph testing. In addition Teresa would never pass some of these tests." to being legal, honesty tests are also economical because they A big part of some tests is a behavioral history of the cost only a fraction of what polygraph tests cost. Furthermore, applicant. Applicants are asked to reveal the nature, frehonesty tests are easily administered at the workplace and quency, and quantity of specific drug use, if any. They also can be quickly evaluated by the test maker. The tests also are must indicate if they have ever engaged in drunk driving. nondiscriminatory because the race, gender, or ethnicity of illegal gambling, traffic violations, forgery, vandalism, and applicants has no significant impact on scores. a host of other unseemly behaviors. They must also state A typical test begins with some cautionary remarks. Test their opinions about the social acceptability of drinking takers are told to be truthful because dishonesty can be alcohol and using other drugs. detected, and they are wamed that incomplete answers Some testing companies go further in this direction. will be considered incorrect, as will any unanswered ques- Instead of honesty exams, they offer tests designed to draw tions. Then appicants ordinarly sign a waver permitting a general psychological profile of the applicant, claiming that the results to be shown to their prospective employer and this sort of analysis can predict more accurately than either authorizing the testing agency to cheok out their answers. the polygraph or the typical honesty test how the person will Sometimes, however, prospective employees are not told perform on the job. Keith M. Halperin, a psychologist with that they are being tested for honesty, only that they are Personnel Decision, Inc. POD), a company that offers such being asked questions about their background. James Walls tests, complains that most paper-and-pencil honesty tests justifes this lack of candor by saying that within a few ques- are simply written equivalents of the polygraph. They ask tions it is obvious that the test deals with attitudes toward applcants whether they have stolen from their employers, honesty. "The test is very transparent, it's not subtie." how much they have taken, and other questions directiy Some questions do indeed seem transparent-for exam- related to honesty. "But why," asks Halperin, "would an appl-ple, "If you found $100 that was lost by a bank truck on the cant who is dishonest enough to steal from an employer street yesterday, would you tum the money over to the bank be honest enough to admit it on a written test? It is more even though you knew for sure there was no reward?" But difficult for applicants to take their responses to POil's tests, other questions are more controversial: "Have you ever had Halperin contends. "everybody does it" and that therefore it would be implau- firms use it. sible for them to deny stealing. In general, those who market Firms who use tests like Rent-A-Center's believe that honesty exams boast of their validity and reliability, as estab- no one's privacy is being invaded because employees and lished by field studies. They insist that the tests do make a job applicants can always refuse to take the test. Critics difference, that they enable employers to ferret out potential disagree. "Given the unequal bargaining power," says former troublemakers-as in the Salvation Army case. ACL official Kathleen Balley, "the ability to refuse to take a Dr. Jones administered London House's PSI to eighty test is one of theory rather than choice-If one really wants kettler applicants, which happened to be the number that the job." the particular theft-ridden center needed. The PSis were not scored, and the eighty applicants were hired with no screening. Throughout the fund-raising month between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the center kept a record of each kettler's dally receipts. After the Christmas season, the tests were scored and divided into "recommended" and "not recommended" for employment. After accounting for the pecullarities of each collection neighborhood, Jones discovered that those kettlers the PSI had not recommended turned in on the average $17 per day less than those the PSI had recommended. Based on this analysis, he estmated the center's loss to employee theft during the fund drive at $20,000. The list of psychological-test enthusiasts is growing by leaps and bounds, but the tests have plenty of detractors. Many psychologists believe the tests often lack validity or reliability, and the American Psychological Association favors the establishment of federal standards for written honesty exams. But the chief critics of honesty and other psychological exams are the people who have to take them. They complain about having to reveal some of the most intimate detals of their lives and opinions. For example, until an employee filed suit, Rent-ACenter, a Texas corporation, asked both job applicants and employees being considered for promotion true-false questions like these: "I have never indulged in any unusual sex practices," " 1 am very strongly attracted by members