Cross-Cultural Considerations with African American Clients: A Perspective on Psychological Assessment

African Americans come from many different national, linguistic, ethnic, racial, cultural, and social backgrounds. Consequently, mental health professionals must figure out how to ensure assessments yield accurate information about their African American clients rather than reflect their own ethnocentric biases. Unfortunately, instruments for the major constructs in psychology—e.g., personality, intelligence, psychopathology—tend to still be limited to those that have been developed on primarily European American samples increasing the risk of clinical errors when they are used with other groups. This chapter discusses some of the cultural issues inherent in the psychological assessment of African Americans and ends with recommendations. Since no test is valid for all purposes or in all situations, people who work with African Americans must ensure they are using tests that are appropriate for them based on the standardization sample, keeping in mind that the generality of a test must be demonstrated, not assumed.