“Listening to the Music of the Mind”
Meidan Turel, Michael Siglag, Alexander Grinshpoon in Clinical Psychology in the Mental Health Inpatient Setting, 2019
Before discussing specific tests and their interpretive value, the following general guidelines are suggested as a strategy when employing a full battery of projective tests. First, it is critical to look for patterns and themes across tests. The essence of a projective test involves presenting subjects with varying levels of ambiguous stimuli, and providing them with space within the testing process to allow for their inner experience to become manifest in their perceptions and comprehensions of that stimuli. At any particular moment of a person’s life, certain narratives will dominate the ways in which they perceive themselves and how they relate to others and the world. In the experience of this writer, these crucial narratives will appear as recurring themes that appear repeatedly in projective responses.
Forensic Assessment
Louis B. Schlesinger in Sexual Murder, 2021
The various methods of personality assessment that have become known as projective tests developed slowly over an extended period of time (Rabin, 1968). A projective technique “evokes from the subject what is in various ways expressive of his private world and personality process” (Frank, 1948, p. 47). Perhaps the most widely used projective test is the Rorschach, developed by Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach in 1921 and brought to the United States by David Levy around 1924 (Klopfer and Kelly, 1942). Although the efficacy of the test has been questioned mostly by nonclinical researchers, its sustained popularity for over 80 years has been well documented (Bornstein, 2001; Piotrowski and Keller, 1992). The Rorschach is regularly utilized in both clinical and forensic settings. And contrary to the popular myth, the Rorschach is welcomed in the courtroom and its scientific validity has only been attacked very infrequently (Meloy, Hansen, and Weiner, 1997; Weiner, Exner, and Sciara, 1996). In fact, the Society for Personality Assessment (2005) published a statement on the status of the Rorschach in clinical and forensic practice. Having reviewed the scientific evidence, they concluded: “the Rorschach possesses reliability and validity similar to that of other generally accepted personality assessment instruments” (p.219).
The Psychiatric Interview
Mohamed Ahmed Abd El-Hay in Essentials of Psychiatric Assessment, 2018
The best known projective test is the Rorschach test. Ten inkblots are presented to the person on a series of ten cards, and the person’s reactions are observed. Three factors are usually considered when interpreting responses; the part of each inkblot to which the subject responds; aspects of the ink-blot on which the subject stresses (color, shape, etc.); and what the inkblot represents to the subject (its content).
The Development and Validation of the Autotelic Personality Questionnaire
Published in Journal of Personality Assessment, 2020
Dwight C. K. Tse, Vienne Wing-yan Lau, Rachael Perlman, Michael McLaughlin
Researchers have previously attempted to measure autotelic personality using a variety of methods. Baumann and Scheffer (2010) developed the first projective measure of achievement flow motive as an operationalization of autotelic personality. In this measure, respondents are presented with ambiguous pictures and asked to come up with related stories. Autotelic personality is indicated by the extent to which the protagonist in respondents’ stories has positive affect and is self-determined. Albeit a noteworthy attempt, the findings concerning the relationship between the projective test and its expected experiential and behavioral outcomes (e.g., frequency or proneness of flow, job engagement) are mixed (Baumann & Scheffer, 2010; Young, 2011). These conflicting results bring into question the validity of this type of measure.
Society for Personality Assessment/Journal of Personality Assessment: A History
Published in Journal of Personality Assessment, 2018
In its issue of December 11, 1953, Collier's magazine announced on its cover “A Test to Help You Figure Out Your Personality.” The corresponding article inside the magazine contained illustrative figure drawings, together with reference to Machover's work and numerous statements about the meaning of various features of the drawings. Understandably aghast, the society appointed an ad hoc committee to assess and comment on this article. There is no subsequent information in the journal's newsletter about the conclusions this committee reached or any actions they took. However this may be, the Collier's event appears to have been a forbear of contemporary concerns about whether the public accessibility of projective test stimuli and information about what the test responses are presumed to show can impair the validity and clinical utility of these personality assessment instruments.
Related Knowledge Centers
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- Emotion
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