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We use all manner of folk methods today to categorise people by observing how they look, what they do and what they say. When we meet someone new we look for familiar characteristics and feel comfortable when we observe that they have behaviours and attitudes in common with other people we have met. We can categorise them. Of course, when we do this we massively simplify the judgement of the other person and miss out so much of their individuality, and we are often wrong. Categorising is a useful shorthand for dealing with everyday life, and it's useful for biological studies, but is it the best way for Psychology to explore human behaviour and experience? The controversies that are dealt with in this chapter concern the value of psychometric testing and the value of diagnostic categories. Do they add to our understanding of people or diminish it? And by categorising and quantifying people do we understand or ignore the experience and behaviour of individuals and groups? We start by looking at the nuts and bolts of psychometric testing before going on to look at how they are used to investigate personality. The final section of the chapter looks at diagnosis and (spoiler alert) how these diagnoses obscure rather than illuminate the experiences of mental distress.
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