Article archive / June 1, 2016
Originally published: . Volume 7, No. 6. Source pages: 2.
ASPPB: “We are writing to tell you of an exciting new development!” by J. Nelson
In our culture of continuous new regulations, now the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards wants to create a second licensing exam to add to the one we have. And they’re excited about their plans –– for the rest of us.
When I was 13 the style was to wear bangs that hung exactly at the level of the eyes, probably promulgated by that witch Twiggy, whose greater crime by far was to create a culture of starvation dieting.
The bangs drove the parental units crazy. My mother suffered the most from my constant fidgeting and swiping hair out of my face. She would try logical persuasion, “Can you even see where you’re going?” and some assertion, “Please cut those bangs,” to occasional manipulation, “I can’t see your beautiful eyes.”
There was absolutely no choice for a teenage girl in 1965 but to keep the bangs. So, mom and I engaged in a low–intensity, chronic power struggle with constant bickering about my bangs. Whether my father actually cared or not I don’t know, but he would occasionally enter the fray on my mother’s side, probably out of simple common sense.
One day, my father, after returning from the Shakespeare class he was taking for fun at Northwestern State, announced an Executive Opinion.
Somewhere in his after–the–class–philosophical–male-bonding time with his favorite Professor, probably between deciding whether the ghost in Hamlet was real or hallucination and the second shared whiskey, my father apparently complained to his Professor friend about my bangs.
“Why do you care?” asked the Professor.
“Because she looks silly and is always brushing her bangs out of her eyes,” said my father.
“Does she make good grades?” Yes. “Does she do her chores?” Yes. “Does she cause any trouble?” No.
“Then forget about the damn bangs.”
And that was the end of it. My father announced that I could have the bangs the way I wanted (no I didn’t get rid of them at that point) and my mother let it go, mostly.
The Professor performed a three–item, criterion related validity study, albeit with restricted application and without a theory. Does the length of bangs relate to job performance? Probably not––or at least not in the expected direction.
The ASPPB is developing another exam hurdle for new psychologists and the LSBEP is considering regulating our assistants. But these ideas include no criterion-related validity, no customer research, and no evidence of any sort of base rate that would make more controls useful.
The hidden burden of regulations in the U.S. is said to reach $1.88 trillion yearly in lost economic productivity (Ten Thousand Commandments, Competitive Enterprise Institute, 2015), something we in applied psychology should be helping understand and correct, not helping to create and confuse.
As for power, control and bangs, when my children were in adolescence, it came out of my mouth: “Are you wearing that to school?” “Why so much eye make-up?” And, because Mother Nature likes a good joke, “Would you please cut those bangs?”
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.