Testing for Competence Rather Than for Intelligence

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Testing for Competence RatherThan for " Intelligence "DAVID C. McCLELLAND Harvard University1The Testing movement in the United States hasbeen a success, if one judges success by the usualAmerican criteria of size, influence, and profit-ability. Intelligence and aptitude tests are usednearly everywhere by schools, colleges, and em-ployers. It is a sign of backwardness not to havetest scores in the school records of children. TheEducational Testing Service alone employs about2,000 people, annually administers Scholastic Apti-tude Tests to thousands of aspirants to college, andmakes enough money to support a large basic re-search operation.

visors' ratings or by such indirect indicators of supervisors' opinions as turnover, promotion, salary increases, and the like. What is interesting to observe is that intelligence test correlations with proficiency in higher status jobs are regularly higher than with proficiency in lower status jobs (Ghiselli, 1966, pp. 34, 78).

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