PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPERTISE AND THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES - AN EXPLORATION OF ISSUES

Cognitive scientists have suggested that individual differences are re latively unimportant in predicting who will become an expert in any pa rticular domain. This stance is at variance with the admissions screen ing practices of graduate programs in professional psychology as well as with counseling psychology's individual differences tradition. The purpose of this article was to consider some of the issues involved on both sides of this apparent contradiction, with particular emphasis o n expertise in professional psychology. I first examine some of the po ssible operational definitions of expertise in this domain. I then con sider salient literature and conclude that there almost certainly are ''threshold levels'' of intellectual and interpersonal skills that tra inees in professional psychology should have. Beyond these levels thou gh, it may be that motivation and persistence are the most important v ariables in predicting the eventual attainment of expertise in profess ional psychology.