Psychological Assessments

In this resource, Theresa Lynn Sidebotham, Esq. and Dr. Brent Lindquist have a discourse about psychological assessments for missionary candidates and what can be done in the interview process, how to do it, what information to ask, and whether it can be done in a nondiscriminatory fashion.

Part 1: Introduction (from Brent)

I have used psychological assessments for missionary candidates for 34 years. In most of those years, I was doing assessment with a narrow focus. That is, I was only doing it from a professional, psychological perspective and leaving any legal, HR, or other issues as the responsibility of the referring agency.

As more and more agencies have brought themselves up to date with statutes, regulations, and legal requirements regarding the hiring of employees, I get questions about what can be done in the interview process, how to do it, what information to ask, and whether it can be done in a nondiscriminatory fashion. We also do psychological assessment when people are having problems.

This series of conversations will discuss some issues around how to do or use psychological assessment, either within the larger interview process, or in a remedial way. This is one of the most frequent questions that I get and I am very grateful that Theresa can help us clarify this. Hopefully by the end of this thread, you will understand the landscape of using assessments well.

What are my own goals in assessments? I want to help the person help himself or herself, help the organization help the person, and avoid discriminatory practices and other HR dilemmas. We hope you find this useful!

Part 2: Legal Issues in Psychological Testing Overview (from Theresa)

Brent, I think it’s a great idea to sort out this idea of psychological testing. While those tests are not needed for most secular jobs, many mission agencies use assessments initially for two reasons. First, because they want to understand their personnel vocationally, and second, because their personnel will be under so much stress in many fields. In addition, other organizations don’t need to worry so much about member care when someone has a problem, and are less likely to provide people with a resource such as counseling at Link Care.

That raises an important distinction between types of tests. Vocational or personality testing doesn’t usually raise legal issues. In this area would fit the Strengths Finder, the Myers Briggs, (what are a couple more, Brent?), whether you are Spring, Summer or Fall (no, sorry, that’s for coordinating your wardrobe). This information is not particularly damaging or confidential—some organizations even encourage people to include their top 5 strengths in their email signature or post it in the office.

Psychological testing can raise a number of issues, including discrimination under the ADA and under GINA.

Testing is also related to the privilege of a religious organization to choose its own ministers, the importance of having good job descriptions that include the necessary qualifications, the mission’s responsibility to care wisely for its people, adequate disciplinary or member care measures, and so on.

Sounds like we have lots to talk about. First, why don’t you define the whole realm of testing a bit better for us?

Part 3: Testing and Assessment for Missionary Candidates (from Brent)

When we think of testing in personnel selection and missions, the first thing that often comes to mind is the issue of particular kinds of tests. I want to take a step back and look at the bigger world of assessment as opposed to the smaller world of testing. Why?

It is my opinion that if we look at assessment in its global sense, we will see that there are ways to understand and evaluate people outside of psychological instruments. This is important because most psychological instruments are restrictive, that is, only licensed or trained people can use them, and they fall under the definition of confidential medical information. They are also usually developed through research and are “normed” for specific populations. That also means they have varying degrees of reliability and validity when compared to a cross-cultural population. (For a separate discussion of cross-cultural psychological issues, see an article about recent ground-breaking research, “We Aren’t the World.”) While psychological instruments must be addressed ethically and legally, personnel people can also use other ways of obtaining information that will be useful for the missionary endeavor.

Real Life Assessments

How do you generally find out about another person, in terms of their strengths, their life experiences and their weaknesses? Much of that information you get without doing any kind of testing at all. You learn from face-to-face interactions, conversations, and a series of questions. Most likely you also give some information about yourself as well. We can get information about a missionary candidate by using tools like narratives and questionnaires. As you think of this process, it's important to know what kind of information you need. For example, it would be important to know how a person understands when he is under stress, when there is danger, when she is anxious, when he is frustrated, and when she is angry. How does the candidate read other people? You can get quite a bit of information about behavior and responses simply by asking questions about these topics.

You also can find out information by asking people to complete a narrative, which describes a particular situation. "Most of us have had experiences in our lives so far, which are quite stressful. We didn't know how to fix things, or we were concerned that things seem to be getting worse and we weren't sure what to do next. Think of two separate situations in your own life and write about them below." This is an example of trying to get a narrative response in learning about how someone manages stress.

A critical part of any kind of narrative or questionnaire, particularly when doing face-to-face interviews, is to ask open-ended questions. That would be the topic of another post.

Formal Assessments

There are three other categories that I want to reference in this post. Theresa referenced vocational assessments and general personality inventories. Also, we often don’t pay enough attention to the issue of spiritual assessments. That would be done by taking a spiritual history, which might include a number of narratives.

As you can see, there is a lot of information available out there, with no cost except for personnel time. The best assessments measure multiple dimensions and arenas, from multiple viewpoints, and try to get at information and experience as close to the prospective work assignment as possible. Sounds like we have lots to talk about. First, why don’t you define the whole realm of testing a bit better for us?

Part 4: Legally Acceptable Tests and Knowledge (from Theresa)

Brent has discussed formal and informal assessments. Informal assessments are probably okay, as long as you don’t ask the “forbidden” questions that would trigger discrimination concerns. I want to dwell a bit more on the formal assessments, and how they might cause concern from a legal standpoint.

Vocational or personality testing doesn’t usually raise an issue. In many ways, those tests are designed to a person useful information about themselves, and give the employer helpful information about the person. For instance, my five strengths on the Strength Finder are Achiever, Strategic, Learner, Connectedness, and either Input or Relator, which probably tells you a lot about why I started a law firm.

The more ominous tests are the diagnostic ones that might identify illnesses and disabilities. These tests can trigger concerns under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA)—or similar laws in other countries. Brent and I have a whole series of posts discussing GINA, but you should not collect information that involves GINA.

To avoid concerns about ADA discrimination, you want to do your candidate testing after you have made a “job offer.” This is not always the sequence that missions use. Sometimes, missions will segregate the test results until a decision is made, but this still goes against EEOC guidance.

Employers can use medical testing (of which psychological testing is a subset), but it has to be used consistently for all candidates, and must be for a job-related reason. For instance, if a particular field placement requires a certain level of physical and psychological health, the job description should be clear on what is needed, and why. There may be fields of service where certain types of physical or mental illnesses cannot be adequately supported, for instance.

All this must be very carefully defined and described, or you may be guilty of discrimination. Your religious hiring criteria (and your ministerial exception) should also be in place. You can set certain limitations on whom you send to the field, and you may be legally responsible if you knowingly send someone fragile and there is a disaster. What you can’t legally do is use your testing to weed out anyone with physical or mental disabilities.

This leads naturally into topics of accommodation and interactive discussions about disability.

Part 5: When a Missionary Candidate Has a Disability

It’s tempting for a mission just to refuse someone who has a mental or physical disability. But consider, should the Church be sending the message that we don’t value persons with disabilities? Also, there may well be legal problems with this approach.

Broadly, in the U.S., the Americans with Disabilities Act covers persons with disabilities, and other countries have similar laws. In the U.S., there is a ministerial exception for persons who serve a ministerial role, which prevents their employment from being scrutinized by the courts for almost any reason. You will want to have those persons clearly defined (with legal help).

Normally, prospective employers do not ask about disabilities. Disabilities could be revealed in a medical examination (which must be done consistently across the board, and with genuine job requirements in view). They could be revealed when the employee or candidate opens an interactive discussion.

Once the employer knows about the disability, there may be an obligation to have an interactive discussion with the employee about possible accommodations. This is definitely the case if the employee has directly asked about accommodations. Accommodations are designed to let the employee fulfill the basic job requirements.

If the job requirements cannot be fulfilled even with accommodations, then there is no obligation to keep the employee on or hire the candidate.

For instance, if a certain job requires the ability to hike 20 miles into the rain forest, and an employee has a significant heart condition, he cannot do that portion of the job. Would it be a reasonable accommodation to fly in? Perhaps, or perhaps not, depending on what is available, and whether it is a hardship for the mission.

What if the person has a mental disability, such as bipolar disorder? It might be negligent to send the person to an area of the world where there is no appropriate medical or psychiatric care. Is there another field that would be more workable? Perhaps so, depending on the staffing needs of the mission. The mission is not obligated to create a special job. Would it be a reasonable accommodation to have the person give permission for the team leader to know and provide accountability for her to stay on medication? Perhaps so, depending on her health history, if the person could potential endanger herself and others on the team.

These are complex issues that are best worked through with legal counsel. But keep these steps in mind.

1. Define all the job requirements for each field and home placement, including physical and emotional.
2. Don’t seek information about disabilities inappropriately.
3. If you learn of a disability, have an interactive discussion with the person and consider if there are possible accommodations.
4. Document all steps carefully.

Part 6: Interpersonal Relationships Versus Diagnosis (from Brent)

It is been said that the biggest problem that missionaries have is with other missionaries! I don't like to put it that way, because I think it demeans and diminishes the richness of missionary relationships in cross-cultural contexts. I would prefer that we say: interpersonal relationships in a cross-cultural environment can be more stressful than at home. And leave it at that.

However, there is no denying the fact that wherever we are, interpersonal relationships can be quite problematic. My struggle is that in our rush to care for people, somebody ends up having to have a diagnosis, in order for it to qualify for counseling. The question remains, do all interpersonal relationship difficulties have a diagnosable label? I think not. At the same time, I am not saying that therefore we shouldn't treat interpersonal relationship difficulties. But we should understand that there are probably many difficulties that don't rise to the level of a clinical impairment. How then do we provide disciplinary and or corrective input when people “don’t play well with others”?

I think it goes right back to policies we have that describe healthy interpersonal relationships needed to be a good missionary and member of an organization. Characteristics of good relationships need to be explicitly described. Also, and more importantly, situations where difficulties arise need to be carefully explained as well. This would include committing to understanding and clarifying differences of opinion and understanding. A member of the community should be expected to work things out, not deny or ignore them. Any member of that community should be able to bring up issues in which there is disagreement. Attempts to arrive at agreement, or resolve conflict, should be recorded. At the point at which one or more members are unable to work through difficulties, outsiders should be brought in to help in an educational capacity. If that doesn't work, there should be a clearly explained process whereby somebody may need to get individual help.

Theresa, do you agree with what I have said? And you have any suggestions about how we might do this in a proactive and appropriate manner?

Part 7: Legal Diagnosis as Well as Psychological Diagnosis (from Theresa)

Brent, you point out correctly that not all problems with people getting along require some kind of psychological diagnosis. Some just relate to spiritual or emotional maturity, and may need pastoral counseling, coaching, or even just plain employment discipline. Some problems with people getting along trigger legal issues, and some do not.

A personnel problem becomes a legal issue primarily when there is a possibility of discrimination. For instance, that could be gender discrimination based on refusal to accept a more “emotional” or “relational” type of communication. It could be disability discrimination based on refusal to accommodate a disability. Or there could be an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) claim. For instance, ordering someone to get a psychological evaluation can raise ADA concerns. It depends on whether there seems to be a disability. Even if there is, getting help may be a job-related necessity, depending on the job requirements and the field.

If you believe there is no disability involved, the issues should be documented in terms of behavior, coaching or other intervention, and disciplinary steps. If there appears to be a disability involved, you must work through the accommodation process, and see if there is in fact a way to accommodate the person (and sometimes there is not).

All of this is more of a concern for “regular” employees, and less of a concern for employees who fit a “ministerial” category. Because religious organizations have almost unlimited freedom to choose (and unchoose) their ministers, the ministerial exception means that employment decisions and requirements about ministerial personnel are not likely to be scrutinized by the courts. Your job descriptions become important in that context as well.

We’ve discussed a lot of moving pieces in these posts. Many of these problems will need counsel from a psychological and an attorney, but at least this should flag some of the issues for our readers.

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"The Rock and the Hard Place" blog is a discourse between Theresa Lynn Sidebotham, Esq. and Dr. Brent Lindquist on the topics of law, human resources, psychology, member care, and the theology of missions. To learn more about this blog and what it's all about, click here.

Theresa Lynn Sidebotham, Esq.

Dr. Brent Lindquist

Disclaimer: not official legal or psychological advice or opinion