Draw-A-Person Test
Projective testing?
The notion of an unconscious mind has been disputed for what some may regard as centuries and with the development of cognitive neuroscience, questions surrounding this idea have continued to arise. Many tests have been developed to investigate implicit attitudes and feelings that are often withheld in more objective psychological assessments. Among these are projective tests — personality tests that are designed to reveal hidden emotions and internal conflicts, requiring test takers to respond to ambiguous stimuli. An example of a commonly used projective test is the Rorshach inkblot test (Figure 1).
Projective tests are often utilized when assessing children. One of the frequently used tests is called the Draw a Person Test which was initially developed by Florence Goodenough in 1926. Children aged 1-13 are instructed to draw: 1) a man; 2) a woman and 3) themselves, on three separate sheets of paper. Fourteen different aspects of the drawings are analyzed based on the Draw-a-Person: QSS (quantitative scoring system), in order to reveal insights into the personality and non verbal intelligence of the test taker. These include: the presence or absence of teeth and the placement of arms in the drawings. It has been though that this test, like other projective tests will expose crucial information on personality traits such as an individuals’ aggressiveness, levels of introversion/extroversion, etc (Murstein, 1965; Machover, 1949).
I find it hard to believe that any useful personality information could be derived from such measures. Beyond this, how can we be sure that these projective measures are providing us with any valid information at all that can help with diagnosis? Could it be that individuals with poor drawing abilities are ascribed pathology labels solely based upon this measure?
Although these measures have been used to a large extent in the past, analyses of validity have found that projective measures are minimally valid and do not provide a strong enough foundation upon which to base clinical decisions. These measures are therefore to be used with much caution and are often used as a means of building rapport between the tester and test taker, and as a secondary measure of personality alongside objective measures of personality such as scales and questionnaires (Reynolds & Livingston, 2012).
As such, I remain skeptical about these types of psychological tests and am curious to see what the future holds for these and other projective measures.
Machover, K. (1949). Personality projection: in the drawing of a human figure. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas Publisher.
Murstein, B. (1965). Handbook of projective techniques. New York, NY: Basic Books Inc.
Reynolds, C., & Livingston, R. B. (2010). Mastering modern psychological testing: Theory & methods. United States of America: Pearson Education Inc.
