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Fidelity Testing - Ethical Considerations in Practice - Jared Rockwood - LCSW
Fidelity Testing - Ethical Considerations in Practice - Jared Rockwood - LCSW
Fidelity Testing - Ethical Considerations in Practice - Jared Rockwood - LCSW
Although the basic interview covered ways delineate the importance of main-
most of the important content that the taining one time period as the frame of
therapist was interested in, it also covered reference. Most therapists/partners want
a lot of peculiar sexual behaviors that may a fusion maintenance and history poly-
not have needed such an emphasis but graph, which would violate the formal APA
even more awkwardly there was a lot of standards regarding testing for a single
maintenance and monitoring questions time period.
that were completely irrelevant to some-
one not on formal state supervision. Once the polygraph is completed, the re-
port goes to the therapist. The therapist’s
With my interest peaked I started to ex- responsibility is to make sure the infor-
plore literature in the area of couples’ ther- mation is processed responsibly. In the
apy. After reading a few different books I pretest interview my role is to acquire as
collected themes that seemed to come up much information as possible regarding
in the literature and began to write an in- the individual’s behaviors. The therapist’s
terview specific to this population. Once role is to ensure the information is used in
the initial draft was completed I sent it to a healing manner for the good of the rela-
a few couple’s therapists for feedback. In tionship.
time I had a cogent interview for both fi-
delity maintenance and history exams. I receive weekly phone calls to complete
That was my first step in the direction fidelity exams for people that are not in-
of serving this population that seems to volved in therapy. In such situations I echo
have been marginalized within some por- the sage advice from my initial polygraph
tions of the polygraph community. instructor: “Spend your money on a thera-
pist, it will be money better spent.” There
Over the last few years I have held to the are times that people will ask for names
standard of only providing fidelity testing of therapists they can reach out to. I per-
in the context of a therapeutic triad. In sonally keep a quick list of therapists that
PCSOT there is the accountability triangle I can e-mail to the caller. Then inevitably
of treatment, supervision, and polygraph. at some time in the future I will have a re-
Drawing from this model when I perform ferral from the therapist to complete the
fidelity testing I work with the therapist exam. But now it is being done within the
and the examinee’s partner as the ac- safety and context of a therapeutic sys-
countability triad. Anytime I set up a fidel- tem.
ity exam, the next step is to contact the
therapist and the partner for background In the event that the individual does not
information and to acquire a handful of want to do therapy, and just want the
questions they are particularly interested exam, I refer them to other local examin-
in exploring/resolving. In addition, I al- ers. I remember one time receiving a call
from one of these polygraph examiners told all 15 charts were confirmed truthful
that basically said, “Ok, Jared… what’s cases, and the other half were told all the
your angle? Why are you sending all these charts were confirmed deceptive. The re-
clients my way that you could just as eas- searchers are covertly shaping the bias of
ily pickup?” My answer was simply that I analysis. The end result was a clear drift
only work by referral. in the overall scoring pattern in the direc-
tion of the planted expectation. The con-
The reason for this position three-fold: 1) clusion of their journal article reinforced
confirmation bias 2) liability and 3) effi- the importance of an independent blind
ciency. scored QC. “At a minimum it would seem
reasonable all examiners could refer to al-
Confirmation Bias gorithm results to help protect their poly-
graph chart analysis from bias, as well as
Confirmation bias is simply the psycho- eroding influence of fatigue, haste, and
logical phenomena where all information distraction.”
is filtered at a preconscious level to align
itself with ideas that one already believes. This is such important information be-
The brain operates through complex webs cause it demonstrates the human tenden-
of neurons known as neural networks. As cy to simplify thought. To allow the pre-
neuronal connections are made, they be- established neural networks to simplify
gin to bond to speed up and simplify the the workload by filtering out information
thinking process (Hebbian Plasticity The- that contradicts the expected outcome.
ory). The end result of all this brain activ- It would be inappropriate to look at these
ity is that we can better filter the immense findings as an anomaly to untrained or un-
amount of information that our brain is intelligent examiners, because it is not a
trying to process by better attending our by-product of training or intelligence but
focus to areas of perceived importance. the way the brain is designed.
In a recent journal article entitled “Believ- In fidelity testing confirmation bias is most
ing is Seeing” Krapohl and Dutton present- important from the perspective of the part-
ed an interesting experiment that illus- ner of the examinee. If someone strongly
trated this point in terms important to us suspects their partner has been unfaith-
as polygraph examiners. The basic break ful, the result of a passed polygraph is
down of the study is they had 15 charts unlikely to change their pre-existing bias.
selected because of concurrence between Instead they will challenge the accuracy
the hand score of the original examiner of the polygraph or be convinced the ex-
and quality control. This included 5 clear- aminee cheated on the test (just like they
ly NSR (+12), 5 clearly SR (-10), and 5 IC cheated on them). The examinee wants
(-0.7). Roughly ½ of the examiners were to “prove” innocence, but the end result is
not the building of trust and connection or actual infidelity of a partner. It is worth
(as desired by the examinee) but an ex- considering the information that is col-
pensive new fight around the already pre- lected in a polygraph and with whom and
established preexisting beliefs. how this information is shared.
Liability If polygraph is for “the protection of the
innocent,” as previously mentioned, then it
• 1 in 4 women (24.3%) and 1 in 7 men may be worth thinking about the ripple ef-
(13.8%) aged 18 and older in the United fects of our exams and their reports. My
States have been the victim of severe personal bias is that it is best contained
physical violence by an intimate part- within the triad of treatment. I would have
ner in their lifetime. a really hard time if I were to perform a
• Nearly 20 people per minute are physi- test only to watch the evening news and
cally abused by an intimate partner in see the report of a homicide involving my
the United States. examinee. That may sound a bit melodra-
• In 15 states, more than 40% of all homi- matic, yet the statistics show that in many
cides of women involved intimate part- states 40% of the homicide rate is related
ner violence. to IPV. The liability of uncontained poly-
• 28% of families were homeless be- graph examinations could have serious,
cause of domestic violence. unintended, ramifications.
• Approximately 5 million children are
Efficiency
exposed to domestic violence every
year. Children exposed are more likely Time is a precious commodity. Pre-exam
to attempt suicide, abuse drugs and al- preparation is an important part of the
cohol, run away from home, engage in polygraph process. When working with at-
teenage prostitution, and commit sexu- torney’s I want access to police interviews
al assault crimes. with alleged victims and an understanding
• Only 1 out of 3 people who are injured of case facts from multiple perspectives.
during a domestic violence incident When I am doing pre-employment exams I
will ever receive medical care for their want to review the background packet pre-
injuries. pared by the background investigators. In
• Most cases of domestic violence are PCSOT testing I will always touch bases
never reported to police. with the therapist and the probation/pa-
(Statistics: SocialSolutions.com) role officer.
As you can see from these statistics Inti- Working fidelity testing I learned quickly
mate Partner Violence (IPV) is a very sig- that there is a pre-exam preparation that
nificant problem in the United States. Of- often includes explaining the process and
ten time IPV is connected to the perceived educating the 1) examinee, 2) examinee’s
partner, and 3) the therapist. The phone ment to ensure you are not twiddling your
calls for these tests have a tendency to be thumbs for a few hours when they don’t
more frequent and more time consuming, show up. If they have financially invested
in part because of the emotional intensity in the test, they are much more likely to
of the experience for the parties involved. show up for the exam.
PTSD criterion is probably not necessary to contemplate the ethical dilemmas and
for the purposes of this discussion, but challenges that exist in that work. I do not
the take home point is “polygraph is for have all the answers and I am not saying
the protection of the innocent.” Included that examiners should not engage in pri-
in this umbrella are people participating in vate exams without the triad of therapy.
therapy for relational dynamics. Infidelity That is what I have chosen for the reasons
is not a side-bar to be destained, but an articulated, but it is not the only way to ap-
area where polygraph can aid through its proach the issue. That stated in order to
ability to foster honesty and accountabil- best serve our clients it is important to
ity. have open dialogue about how to main-
tain ethical and effective practices in this
In order to navigate the waters of fidelity often derided and sidelined form of poly-
successfully I would encourage all of us graph testing.