Explanation

Introduction

Psychological assessment serves several functions: classification, explanation, prediction, and decision aid. Classification means the assignment of the single case to be assessed to an element or category of a classification system, as shown by, for example, the DSM or the ICD. Prediction aims at an answer to the question of what will happen in the future, if the single case concerned is treated in specific ways. And decision aid means supporting the selection of an optimal [Page 395]treatment for the single case, i.e. a treatment with the highest benefit or utility in the respective case. Finally, explanation as the topic of this entry is, generally spoken, a statement or account which makes what is to be explained clearer than it was before and promotes its understanding. What is to be explained in psychological assessment are the problems or disorders which occur in the single case concerned. If explanation is at stake, the assessment process can be construed as setting up and testing case-related idiographic hypotheses (Fernandez-Ballesteros et al., 2001) which refer to the causes, reasons or conditions which brought about the problems or disorders. The well-confirmed idiographic hypotheses which hopefully come out at the end of such an assessment process make up the explanation or are at least an important part of it.

Types of Psychological Explanations

Explanations in psychological assessment can be of very different types. Bunge and Ardila (1987) distinguish the following ones for psychology in general: Tautological explanations refer to basic capabilities or mental faculties of a person (e.g.: Person p is able to imitate another person because of p's vicarious capability). Teleological explanations refer to goals or purposes of a person (e.g.: Person p studied law in order to become a lawyer). Mentalist explanations refer to mental events of a person (e.g.: Person p developed a perversion because p suffered from an intrapsychic conflict between id and superego). Metaphorical explanations refer to analogies with physical or social processes, or with animals or machines (e.g.: In person p aggressive energy accumulates like heat in a steam boiler). Genetic explanations refer to the genetic endowment of a person (e.g.: Person p shows a high musical intelligence because p comes from a family of conductors and composers). Developmental explanations refer to stages or levels of biological or psychological development or to events in a person's past (e.g.: Person p suffers from social phobia because p was often rejected by his or her social environment in his or her childhood). Environmental explanations refer to external conditions and factors influencing a person (e.g.: The phobic symptoms of p are weakened because p is massively exposed to the threatening stimuli). Evolutionary explanations refer to the survival value of a behaviour or behaviour tendency of a person, its selective advantages or disadvantages (e.g.: Person p has a high pain threshold under duress because of its survival value). Physiological explanations refer to physiological, especially neurophysiological and endocrinological, processes and mechanisms of a person (e.g.: The depressive person p experienced an elevation of her or his mood because p took a cyclic antidepressant which increased the chemical neurotransmitter serotonin). Mixed explanations are combinations of two or more of the above mentioned types of explanation. Many explanations occurring in psychology are not pure cases of one type, but combinations of at least two types, i.e. they are mixed explanations. Especially in psychological assessment, mixed explanations are not an exception but the rule, since one-sided explanations usually provide only a partial answer to the problem concerned.

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