Projective Personality Tests

446
FIGURE
Chapter 11 Personality
11.6
The Rorschach Inkblot Test
People taking the Rorschach
test are shown ten patterns
by
similar to this one and asked
to tell what the blot looks like, and why.
Try jotting down what you see in the blot,
and why, and then compare your responses to those of some friends. Most
methods of scoring this test focus on (1)
what part of the blot the person responds
to; (2) what details, colors, or other features determine each response; (3) the
content of responses (such as seeing animals, maps, or body parts); and (4) the
popularity or commonness of the responses.
doing
2
learn
people with whom the respondent’s results are compared. So although an MMPI profile might look like that of someone with a mental disorder, the profile might actually
reflect the culture-specific way the person interpreted the test items, not a psychological problem (Groth-Marnat, 1997). Even though the MMPI-2 uses comparison norms
that represent a more culturally diverse population than did those of the original
MMPI, psychologists must still be cautious when interpreting the profiles of people
who identify with minority subcultures (Butcher, 2004.)
Projective Personality Tests
projective personality tests Personality tests made up of relatively unstructured stimuli in which responses are seen
as reflecting the individuals’ unconscious
needs, fantasies, conflicts, thought patterns, and other aspects of personality.
Unlike objective tests, projective personality tests contain items or tasks that are
ambiguous, meaning that they can be perceived in many different ways. People taking projective tests might be asked to draw a house, a person, a family, or a tree; to
fill in the missing parts of incomplete pictures or sentences; to say what they associate with particular words; or to report what they see in a drawing or picture. Projective techniques are sometimes employed in personality research, but they are far
more popular among clinical psychologists, who use them in the assessment of psychological disorders (Wood et al., 2003) These psychologists tend to take a psychodynamic approach to their work. They believe that people’s responses to these tests
are guided by unconscious needs, motives, fantasies, conflicts, thoughts, and other
hidden aspects of personality.
One prominent projective test, called the Thematic Apperception Test, or TAT, is
described in the motivation and emotion chapter as a measure of need for achievement. Henry Murray and Christina Morgan developed this test to assess the needs they
saw as the basis of personality. Another well-known projective test, the Rorschach
Inkblot Test, features a series of ten inkblots similar to the one in Figure 11.6. The
respondent is asked to tell what the blot might be and then to explain why.
Those who support projective testing claim that using ambiguous test items makes
it difficult for respondents to detect what is being measured and what the “best” answers
would be. They argue, therefore, that these tests can measure aggressive and sexual
impulses and other personality features that people might be able to hide on an objective test. The tests’ supporters also point to specific instances, such as in studies assessing achievement motivation with the TAT, in which projective tests show acceptable
reliability and validity (Grønnerød, 2003; Schultheiss & Rohde, 2002).