Personality Testing in the Church of Scientology: Implications for Outcome Research

Many fields of modern society require scientific proof of effectiveness before new methods can be widely accepted, as in clinical trials for new drugs, educational evaluation for teaching approaches, and outcome studies for psychological interventions. Previous outcome studies on the results from Scientology services are reviewed and found to be inconclusive. The paper is devoted to the question of whether the existing data base of several thousand case histories could be used for outcome studies. The existing data contain personality test scores on the Oxford Capacity Analysis (OCA) administered before and after scientology services. A detailed analysis of the OCA demonstrates that it was derived from the Johnson Temperament Analysis (JTA), a psychological test of poorly documented validity, by paraphrasing its items, copying its scoring weights and transforming its test norms, with some alterations. It was concluded that the OCA is presently unsuitable for outcome studies, but that this situation could change if additional research could demonstrate that the OCA had validities comparable to other personality tests. For future use, it is recommended that an entirely new version of the OCA be constructed with completely original items, simplified scoring weights, and empirically derived norms, and that its validity and reliability be demonstrated prior to implementation.