5, Tests should involve operant as well as re-
spondent behavior. One of the greatest weaknesses
of nearly all existing tests is that they structure the
situation in advance and demand a response of a
certain kind from the test taker. They are aimed
at assessing the capacity of a person to make a
certain kind of response or choice. But life out-
side of tests seldom presents the individual with
such clearly denned alternatives as "Which dog is
most likely to bite?" or "Complete the following
number series: 1 3 6 10 IS ," or "Check the
word which is most similar in meaning to lexi-
con . . . ." If we refer to these latter behaviors
as respondents in the sense that the stimulus situa-
tion clearly is designed to evoke a particular kind
of response, then life is much more apt to be charac-
terized by operant responses in the sense that the
individual spontaneously makes a response in the
absence of a very clearly defined stimulus. This
fact probably explains why most existing tests do
not predict life-outcome behaviors. Respondents
generally do not predict operants. To use a crude
example, a psychologist might assess individual dif-
ferences in the capacity to drink beer, but if he
used this measure to predict actual beer consump-
tion over time, the chances are that the relationship
would be very low. How much beer a person can
drink is not related closely to how much he does
drink.