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Wanted  : one not so – smart police officer

          Although that’s not how the advertisement for police, officer in New London, Connecticut, said it might as well have. The official hiring policy prevents people who score too low or too high on an employment test administered by the town to be considered for a position as police officer (Allen, 1999; see Figure 7-10).

          The hiring standards carche to light during a three year court battle, in which an applicant for a position as police officer was refused even an interview. The reason was that the scored 33 aout of 50 was considered too skilled to do a good job as a police officer.

          The screening test used by the police department has been utilized by 40.000 employers throughout the United States and has been given to 125 million people since it was first devised. It is designed to give a range of scores for people who are likely to be successful in a given profesion, with the range of scores for people who are likely to be successful in a given profesion, with the range depending on the nature of the spesific job. Although not a traditional IQ measure, the test gauges, l earning ability, skill in understanding instructions, and problem solving potential (Wonderlic, 2000).

          The rationale for excluding applicants who score to high, according to the New London police departement, is that much police work is routine. As a consequence, highly intelligent police officers become bored and leave the job soon after they received their expensive initial training.

          Critics of the police departements position point out that it takes considerable intelligence to deal with complex situations faced by police officers, such as complicated social situations involving families. Furthermore, some decisions must be made instantly and under enormous pressure in these situations intelligence would clearly be of benefit. Furthermore, one could arguw that it is better to have frequent turnover of intelligent workers, rather than be saddled with not so intelligent employees for long periods.

          Depsite these criticisms, courts have ruled that employers have the right to exclude potential workers on the basis of being too skilled, as long as the guidelines are unformly applied to all job seekers. As a consequence, job applicants have a new worry to add to their  anzieties that they migt score too high on a job test.

                        How do you think employers established that some scores on the tests described above were too high  too high for certain jobs? Do you think it is reasonable to exclude pople from certain jobs on the basis of high tes scores? Why?
source: essentials of understanding psychology by robert s. feldman