Projective Tests

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Projective Tests

• William P. Wattles, Ph.D.
• Francis Marion University

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Ambiguous Stimuli

• When there is no correct answer the
  individuals response may be driven by internal
  conflicts, motives, needs and perceptual press.

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The Projective Hypothesis

• Freud originated the idea of projection in 1911
• Classical projection
• Defense mechanism to attribute negative
  personality traits to others.
• Not fared well in research

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Projective testing

• Disciples of projective testing are heavily
  invested in psychoanalytic theory and its
  postulation of unconscious aspects of
  personality.
• Gregory, R. J. (2004). Psychological Testing
  history, principles, and applications. Boston
  Allyn and Bacon

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Need for projectives

• Access to peoples attitudes and traits is blocked
  
• response factors
• introspective limits.

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Projection

• Generalized or assimilative projection
• Individuals personality characteristics, needs,
  and life experiences influence their
  interpretation (apperception) of ambiguous
  stimuli.

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Principal Advantages

• Projective techniques allow the clinician toa.
  bypass conscious defenses
• b. obtain access to unconscious information,
  such as conflicts, impulses, of which clients are
  not aware

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Projective Drawings

• Projective drawings are expressive techniques in
  that they suggest aspects of the person while he
  or she is performing some activity.

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Drawings

• To obtain an accurate view of a persons inner
  world, one must somehow circumvent unconscious
  defenses and conscious resistances.

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Rorschach

• Stimuli from the environment are organized by a
  persons specific needs, motives, and conflicts.

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Popularity Versus Validity

• TATControversy regarding reliability and
  validity is ongoing.
• Rorschach Despite initial (and continuing)
  popularity reviews have been quite critical
• Drawings Their use declined in response to poor
  reviews regarding validityyet, drawing
  techniques are still ranked among the ten most
  frequently used tests.

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Literature Review

• Lilienfeld, S. O. , Wood, J. M. and Garb, H. N.
  (2000). The Scientific Status of Projective
  Techniques. Psychological Science in the Public
  Interest, 1, 27-66.

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Anastasi

• Projective techniques present a curious
  discrepancy between research and practice.
• When evaluated as psychometric instruments, the
  majority make a poor showing.
• Yet, their popularity in clinical use continues
  unabated

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Aiken

• Because of scoring problems, most projective
  techniques fail to meet conventional standards of
  reliability and validity.
• Aiken, L. R. (2003). Psychological Testing and
  Measurement, 11th edition. Boston Allyn and
  Bacon.

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Gregory

• In general, attempts to validate the H-T-P as a
  personality measure have failed miserably
• Indeed, the absence of standardized procedures
  is such that we should rightly regard the TAT as
  a method not a test.
• the Rorschach has not yet gained the status of
  scientific respectability enjoyed by many other
  personality tests, and perhaps it never will.
• Gregory, R. J. (2004). Psychological Testing
  history, principles, and applications. Boston
  Allyn and Bacon

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The Projective Paradox

• The evidence is quite clear that personality
  inferences drawn from projective tests are often
  wrong. In the face of negative validation
  findings, the enduring practitioner acceptance of
  the tests constitutes the projective paradox.
• Gregory, R. J. (2004). Psychological Testing
  history, principles, and applications. Boston
  Allyn and Bacon

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The Projective Paradox

• Illusory Validation
• Clinicians may notice confirming instances and
  ignore contradictions

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The Projective Paradox

• Often may be used only for hypothesis generation.

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Most frequently used tests

• WAIS
• MMPI
• Sentence completion
• TAT
• Rorschach
• Bender-Gestalt
• Projective Drawings

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Current Training

• 49 of directors of clinical psychology graduate
  programs and 65 of the directors of clinical
  internships believe that formal training in
  projectives is important.

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Current Practitioners

• 82 of clinical psychologists administer the
  Rorschach at least occasionally and 43 report
  frequently or always using it.
• A recent estimate place the number of Rorschachs
  administered each year at 6 million.

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Projective techniques

• Present respondents with an ambiguous stimulus
  and ask them to disambiguate it.

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Rorschach

• Has the distinction of being the most cherished
  and the most reviled of all psychological
  assessment instruments.

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Interpretive Systems

• Developed in the 20s
• Content
• Location
• Determinents
• Color
• Movement
• shading
• Exner System released in 1974 suggested a
  scientific basis for the Rorschach.

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Exner

• Exner norms are unrepresentative of the U. S.
  population and tend to make normal adults and
  children appear maladjusted.

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File Drawer Problem

• Studies with negative results less likely to be
  accepted for publication (publication bias)
• Also less like to be submitted.

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Low base rate

• Studies tend to be based on differentiating two
  equally sized groups.
• In real life base rates may be very low.

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Popularity of Rorschach

• Part of the allure is its mystery
• How could something as simple as 10 inkblots
  reveal inner personality
• X rays of the mind
• A deep well with rich and valuable information.
• Intuition and clinical lore.

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Face Validity and Test Utility

• Can a test high in face validity be useful in a
  psychological evaluation?
• What does it add to the interview data?

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Criticisms of Projectives

• Overly complex scoring systems
• Questionable norms
• Subjectivity of scoring
• Poor predictive validity
• Inadequate validity

• Extensive time required to learn
• Heavy reliance on psychoanalytic theory
• Objective tests more time and cost effective

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TAT

• TAT produces personal data that theoretically
  bypass a subjects conscious resistances.

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Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

• Morgan Murray 1935.Elicit fantasy material
  from patients in psychoanalysis.31 cards

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TAT administration

• A set of 20 cards is recommended but the number
  may vary based on length of stories
• Some cards are suggested for use with adult
  males, adult females, or both.
• Some are best used with children however, all
  cards may be administered to any subject.

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IAT

• Kim (2001) showed that even participants who were
  fully informed about the functioning of the IAT
  were not able to fake positive implicit attitudes
  toward Blacks.

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IAT

• It is further assumed that implicit measures are
  not subject to conscious control, and, thus,
  response factors and introspective limits
  (Greenwald et al., 2002) do not diminish their
  validity.

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• Proponents of projective techniques maintain that
  inventories and other self-report instruments
  fail to get at deeper layers of personality
  because people either are not aware of their
  characteristics and problems or will not reveal
  them.

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Humility

• How good a job of understanding psychological
  functioning do we do?

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The End
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