Psyc. screening of foreign university students?
rebornFixer
Posts: 4,901
Pros and cons of doing a complete psychological evaluation of prospective students before letting them come to North America to study? Heck, pros and cons of doing this with domestic students as well?
I can think of many pros AND cons, but I'd like to hear peoples' opinions. I'll post mine later.
Worth a discussion, I think. I know, it means not thinking about guns for a moment.
I can think of many pros AND cons, but I'd like to hear peoples' opinions. I'll post mine later.
Worth a discussion, I think. I know, it means not thinking about guns for a moment.
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
Con- foreign students could be refused and come back as terrorists after America pulls out of Iraq.
con-domestic students could be refused and come back to the campus with a gun.
i'm kidding of course.
all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
Seriously, by 18 years of age, a person's temperament is proabably the same as it's ever been. A criminal background check is about the only thing I think could be done.
all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
not really worth any discussion. it's a stupid idea. why not give psych evals to every student? why not make like ahnimus and just do everyone's brain scans? we can lock them up before they commit a crime based on the statistical probability they might. how many foreign students actually commit crimes when they get here? one kid snaps and now you want to enact a ridiculous and reactionary response that aims to prevent a crime that will probably never happen again?
all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
Why don't we just give everyone in the world a psyche screening.
the other foot in the gutter
sweet smell that they adore
I think I'd rather smother
-The Replacements-
The main con is alienating possible students - It just seems like another barrier for students to go through to come to our country to study. While there is that fear of terrorist getting a student visa, I think the benefits of people from countries that may hate us coming here and meeting good people and taking positive experiences back to their countries, outweigh the dangers.
And it this case, from the blurb that I read, this nutjob has been in this country legally for 15 years. It's not like the culture shock put him over the edge.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
I can see the rejection letter...
"We are sorry that while you are qualified for admission to our fine university, our tests show that you have potential psychological issues and may snap and try to kill all of us at some point.
Thank you for your interest."
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
Another is the problem of cross-cultural validity of assessment tools ...
Pros? I can think of a few that I will share. Assuming that the assessment is reliable and valid (as I said, a problematic assumption with many cultural groups), you can learn a lot about how someone's current state might affect their future functioning. We know quite a bit about the personalities of school shooters (not to mention other types of homicidal individuals), and maybe some intervention could occur before these vulnerable individuals get a chance to crack under the pressure?
Just thinking as I go ... I recognize that its damn hard to predict future violent behaviors. But does this difficulty mean it shouldn't be tried? Think hard about the costs of not doing it.
Any idea is worth at least some thought. And its just a fucking proposal. I posted it as such. Don't get your knickers in a knot. I wish I was so confident in saying that this will never happen again.
A murderer doesn't kill because he is from out of the country, he kills because he wants to. He is like others born within the United States who want to kill, and either succeed or fail.
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
Why is it so surprising to at least consider the possibility? These assessments are not intended to be demeaning. Many people get them. That's not the goal.
In fact, at least one American university requires ALL prospective grad students to do psychological symptom testing before admisssion.
Once again, this is just something I wanted to toss out there. Not saying I would jump right in and implement.
If Psychology were so good as to be able to segregate these kind of "personalities", it would have succeeded by now.
all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
Oh yes, and agreed, at least in this case.
But it actually IS pretty good at predicting violent behavior, at least when the right tools are used. Maybe not in a school context, which of course is a huge problem. One would need to research the possibility of using these tools as part of university admissions.
I'd like to also mention another serious potential con, which is basic civil liberties violations. Is this one, do you think?
I wouldn't know, legally. Ask onelongsong, he's a lawyer.
all posts by ©gue_barium are protected under US copyright law and are not to be reproduced, exchanged or sold
except by express written permission of ©gue_barium, the author.
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
I see your point, and perhaps the possibility should have been framed as assessing of EVERYBODY ... Given that the vast, vast majority of school shooters are in fact American-born and raised.
I don't mean to blame the parents, maybe they just didn't know what signs to look for, but there are definetly signs that a person exhibits before commiting such an irrational act.
Indeed, and if people could become better able to detect signs, maybe this sort of thing would become even more rare?
Another issue ... Is there any validity to the claim that people actually lined up to be shot by this guy?
I've heard that being mentioned in the news but I guess till we get some factual confirmation it's all just speculation.
In many hostage situations the hostages always out number their captures but you hardly hear of them over powering them. I think people tend to listen simply because they believe compliance will lead to their safe release.
First off, "allegedly stalking some women" doesn't necessarily mean he was.
Now, does it strike anyone else as odd that assertions about Cho's character are made as printed above and right here:
But in the same breath (and articles), the following is also said?
Is it just me?
Hail, Hail!!!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18148802/?GT1=9246
Authorities ID gunman in Va. Tech rampage
Student’s writings raised red flags before 33 killed; bomb threat found
Virginia Tech
Cho Seung-Hui, who immigrated to the United States at age 8 in 1992, lived in Centreville, Va., a suburb of Washington.
View related photos
MSNBC and NBC News
Updated: 15 minutes ago
BLACKSBURG, Va. - A 23-year-old senior from South Korea whose creative writing was so disturbing that he was referred to the school’s counseling service was behind the massacre of 30 people locked inside a university classroom building in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, the university said Tuesday.
Ballistics tests found that one of the guns used in that attack was also used in a shooting two hours earlier at a dormitory that left two people dead at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Virginia State Police said. Investigators said in a court filing that they had found a “bomb threat note” near the gunman’s body.
Police identified the shooter as Cho Seung-Hui (pronounced Choh Suhng-whee), of Centreville, Va., who was a senior in the English Department at Virginia Tech. Cho, a resident alien who immigrated to the United States from South Korea in 1992, lived on campus in Harper Residence Hall.
The bloodbath ended with Cho’s suicide, bringing the death toll from two separate shootings — first at the dormitory, then in a classroom building — to 33 and stamping the campus in the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains with unspeakable tragedy.
Note listed gunman’s grievances
Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university’s English department, said she did not personally know the gunman. But she said she spoke with Lucinda Roy, the department’s director of creative writing, who had Cho in one of her classes and described him as “troubled.”
“There was some concern about him,” Rude told The Associated Press. “Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it’s creative or if they’re describing things, if they’re imagining things or just how real it might be. But we’re all alert to not ignore things ike this.”
She said Cho was referred to the counseling service, but she said she did not know when or what the outcome was. Rude refused to release any of his writings or his grades, citing privacy laws.
NBC News’ Pete Williams reported that police had found a note in which Cho listed “random grievances,” but few other details were immediately available. That seemed in keeping for a young man who apparently left little impression in the Virginia Tech community.
Cho’s fellow residents of Harper Hall said few people knew the gunman, who kept to himself.
“He can’t have been an outgoing kind of person,” Meredith Daly, 19, of Danville, Va., told MSNBC.com’s Bill Dedman.
Stephen Scott, a freshman engineering student from Marlton, N.J., said police and FBI agents went through the dorm Monday night showing a picture of Cho and trying to find anybody who recognized or knew him. He did not know whether they were successful.
‘Very quiet, always by himself’
In Centreville, a suburb of Washington where Cho’s family lived in an off-white, two-story townhouse, people who knew Cho concurred that he kept to himself.
“He was very quiet, always by himself,” said Abdul Shash, a neighbor. Shash said Cho spent a lot of his free time playing basketball and would not respond if someone greeted him. He described the family as quiet.
Rod Wells, a postal worker, said that characterization of Cho did not fit the man’s parents, who, he described as “always polite, always kind to me, very quiet, always smiling. Just sweet, sweet people.”
“I talk to particularly everybody here,” Wells told NBC News. “So I guess nobody had any intimation that he was like that. I don’t think the parents did, because they were quite the opposite.”
However, hindsight bias is huge in these cases ... This shit happens, and suddenly people think back and come up with as many deviant behaviors as they can ... It isn't necessarily 100% accurate, but on the other hand, of course someone who does this is mentally ill in some sense of the word.
Indeed not, but I think we need some better way of detecting these people. Problem is, school shootings are extremely low base rate and you'd certainly overpredict.
Fuck. I am still just so disgusted by the whole thing. Something effective needs to happen ... And that something is changing the way our culture glorifies violence.
Not gonna happen, I fear ...
You ready to vomit?
http://www.columbinegame.com
Talk about glorifying violence and the definition of 'Bad taste'...
Hail, Hail!!!