Are Psychological Tests Really Helpful?

The necessity to find out who are we is as old as the hills. The ancient Sumerian tribes used the first psychological tests in the sixth century B. C. That practice helped the wise men to choose the bravest and decisive men to join the warriors. The power of their will was proven by the cruel assay. A man was to shoot his own horse from his bow. A wide number of similar examples can be found in the Bible. The most famous experiment was probably carried out by Solomon. The ancient governor used the psychological method to arbitrate the two women who couldn’t decide which of them was the mother of a baby. He pretended he wanted to kill the baby. The real mother agreed to give her baby to the other woman in order to save its life. Confucius and his followers founded the method of public officials screening based on their personal achievements without taking into consideration their wealth and aristocratic origin. The shortlisting for the philosophic and religious schools in Greece was based not only on the depth of students’ knowledge but also on the ability to use the skills in a critical situation. In the end of nineteenth century the British scientists Fransis Galton has carried out the public examination and psychological testing of an enormous group of ten thousand people. In that way he showed how dramatic the difference is even between the people of one and the same age. Several years later the German psychologist Munsterberg developed the psychological tests that we still use.