Bias in mental testing since bias in mental testing

Racial/ethnic subgroup differences in average performance on standardized tests of cognitive ability are well established (Gordon & Bhattacharya, "Race and Intelligence," and Jensen, "Race and IQ Scores," in Encyclopedia of Human Intelligence, 1994; Herrnstein & Murray, The Bell Curve, 1994), but the reasons for these differences are an ongoing source of controversy. One popular and longstanding claim is that mean differences are caused by "cultural bias" in the tests. Arthur Jensen exhaustively reviewed the empirical literature on the issue of test bias, which resulted in his seminal book, Bias in Mental Testing (BIMT), published in 1980. On the basis of empirical criteria for evaluating test bias, Jensen concluded that standardized aptitude/ability tests predict equally well for American-born, English-speaking majority and minority subgroups and measure similar constructs. This paper summarizes the major conclusions from BIMT and evaluates writing on test bias published since BIMT. We conclude that empirical research to date consistently finds that standardized cognitive tests are not biased in terms of predictive and construct validity. Furthermore, continued claims of test bias, which appear in academic journals, the popular media, and some psychology textbooks, are not empirically justified. These claims of bias should be met with skepticism and evaluated critically according to established scientific principles.