Criticism and Controversy
Psychologists have assailed the test's lack of scientific basis. Other critics call it intentionally manipulative and humiliating.
"The overall impression one gets ," said a psychologist testifying before a public inquiry into Scientology in Victoria, Australia in the mid-1960s, "is that it has been prepared by somebody with a smattering of psychometrics rather than by someone who is really competent in the field." A more detailed investigation was undertaken in 1970 by the British Psychological Society (BPS) at the request of politician Sir John Foster. The group's conclusions:
| “ | Taking the procedure as a whole, one is forced to the conclusion that the Oxford Capacity Analysis is not a genuine personality test; certainly the results as presented bear no relation to any known methods of assessing personality or of scaling test scores. | ” |
Another detailed evaluation was carried out in 1981 by Gudmund Smith, Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Psychology of the University of Lund, Sweden. This time the investigation was done for a prosecutor attacking a local branch of Narconon, the church's drug rehab offshoot. Smith cited numerous methodological and empirical flaws in the OCA, describing it as a "terrible mess," and concluded (in translation from the original Swedish):
| “ | The Oxford Capacity Analysis consists to a high degree of unclearly formulated, ambiguous or misleading questions. It is used as a foundation, in a non-specific way, for an individual evaluation in 11 dimensions, partly incoherent or openly judgmental, as a whole diffuse. In view of the weaknesses also characterizing serious instruments of this type, this instrument must be regarded as completely unreliable. | ” |
The OCA also came under scrutiny in Queensland, Australia in 1990, when it emerged that scores of people had lost their jobs after a Brisbane-based personnel management company had given them poor OCA evaluations, "us such brutal terms they can read like character assassinations, leaving employers with little choice but to fire staff." The Australian Psychological Society denounced the OCA as "downright dangerous," commenting that
| “ | We've had a look at their tests and if you didn't know better, they look credible ... These tests are saying people are acceptable or unacceptable, but really there's nothing in them to allow you to draw that kind of conclusion. It's the interpretations that are bogus — they are drawing arbitrary conclusions that simply aren't warranted. | ” |
The Church of Scientology has reportedly been unable to produce information to substantiate the validity of the Oxford Capacity Analysis. This has attracted criticism from the Buros Institute of Mental Measurements in Lincoln, Nebraska, which produces the Mental Measurements Yearbook — the industry "bible" for psychological tests. According to the institute, "Any group should include information that substantiates the use of its test. If they can't, then it doesn't meet the standards for educational and psychological tests."
The OCA evaluators' criticism of their test subjects' personalities has also drawn sharp criticism. A London Evening Standard reporter described the unease she felt after she had taken the OCA test:
| “ | Later, as I sat on the Tube thinking about this small taste of Scientology, I was able to brush it off. Maybe Nicole Kidman has done, or is doing, something vaguely similar. In truth, though, while I sat in that office and listened to a total stranger utterly trash my personality and character — on the basis of no evidence at all — I began to feel vaguely insecure. Paranoid even.
The Church of Scientology claims to help people attain a deeper, richer existence — but it clearly does so by erasing all sense of self-respect first. |
” |
Psychologists have echoed this critique. The methodological flaws of the OCA were such that, in the view of Professor Gudmund Smith, "Analysis for evaluation of an individual is, in my opinion, manifestly unethical." Testifying in a court case in Ireland in 2003, Dr Declan Fitzgerald of University College Dublin said he believed that the OCA "impinged on people's self-esteem and was highly manipulative." In its 1970 report, the British Psychological Society's working party was even harsher with its criticism, declaring that
| “ | No reputable psychologist would accept the procedure of pulling people off the street with a leaflet, giving them a 'personality test' and reporting back in terms that show the people to be 'inadequate,' 'unacceptable' or in need of 'urgent' attention. In a clinical setting a therapist would only discuss a patient's inadequacies with him with the greatest of circumspection and support, and even then only after sufficient contact for the therapist–patient relationship to have been built up. To report back a man's inadequacies to him in an automatic, impersonal fashion is unthinkable in responsible professional practice. To do so is potentially harmful. It is especially likely to be harmful to the nervous introspective people who would be attracted by the leaflet in the first place. The prime aim of the procedure seems to be to convince these people of their need for the corrective courses run by the Scientology organisations. | ” |
Even the name of the Oxford Capacity Analysis has been criticized as misleading. The Times comments that the test "has nothing to do with Oxford University" and says that "Scientologists use the word "Oxford" to give it credence."
Read more about this topic: Oxford Capacity Analysis
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