Projective Tests
Totally trivial?
“An old guy giving a kid a Rorschach test.”
In reality, it’s a very sensible answer. Projective tests, like the Rorschach Inkblot Task depicted above have been subject—not without reason— to much controversy since their development. A. R. Jensen was quoted for saying: “…the rate of scientific progress in clinical psychology might well be measured by the speed and thoroughness with which it gets over the Rorschach.” (Lilienfeld, Wood, & Garb, 2000).
A projective test is defined as one in which the participant is asked to respond to ambiguous stimuli, and there are no correct or incorrect answers. It is thought that individuals structure or construe the ambiguous stimulus in a way that reflects their unconscious thoughts, beliefs, needs, or desires. Afterwards, the responses are content analyzed for meaning(University of Alberta). These tests developed out of the psychoanalytic tradition, and were thought to have a number of advantages. These included a reduced temptation to provide false responses, as no response was inherently correct or incorrect. The tests required little to now verbal ability to complete. They were said to tap both conscious and inconscious traits. Finally, they focused on the clinical perspective, as opposed to the normative perspective (Northeastern Illinois University).
However, it is the inherent subjectivity of the stimulus, responses, and interpretations of these responses that has cause psychologists today to turn their back on such projective testing techniques, although they are not yet obsolete. Several tests still exist today, and are still used in clinical practice, especially in the Unites States (Lillienfeld et al., 2000). Some of the most common tests include the Rorschach Inkblot Task, the Thematic Apperception Test, the House-Tree-Person Test, and the Draw-A-Person Test.
Thematic Apperception Test, the House-Tree-Person Test, the Draw-A-Person Test, and many others. They have in common highly ambiguous stimuli, such as those illustrated here by the Rorschach Inkblot and a situation taken from the Thematic Apperception Test.
From the images of the House-Tree-Person Test and the Draw-A-Person Test, one can see that the responses are equally ambiguous. This of course begs the question, how are such tests scored, and is it possible that such measures are both reliable and valid despite their apparent subjectivity?
A thorough review of extant tests by Lillienfeld et al. (2000) found that only a very small number of indexes derived from the Rorschach and Thematic Apperception task showed any validity, and that validity evidence was even scarcer for drawing tests.
Furthermore, they conducted a meta-analysis in which they compare the capacity of these three types of projective tests to detect child sexual abuse. The researchers found that none of the findings could be replicated across independ investigative teams (Lillienfeld, 2000).
Therefore, it seems that we should err of the side of caution, and perhaps, as the girl in the cartoon at the outset of this piece, remain sceptical of the reliability and validity of projective tests. After all, introducing so much subjectivity into psychological measurement cannot possibly yield a strong assessment tool.0
Lillienfeld, S. O., Wood, J. M., Garb, H. N. (2000). The scientific status of projective tests. Psychological Science In the Public Interest 1(2). 27–66.
Northeastern Illinois University (n.d.). Projective Methods for Personality Assessment. Retrieved from http://www.neiu.edu/~mecondon/proj-lec.htm. Page visited 2 March 2015.
University of Alberta (n.d.).Projective Tests. Retrieved from http://web.psych.ualberta.ca/~chrisw/L12ProjectiveTests/L12ProjectiveTests.pdf. Page visited 2 March 2015.
