UNIT 1: DEFINITON AND NATURE OF PROJECTIVE TESTS

 

 

A.      DEFINITION:

 

Any of several methods asking for interpretation of an ambiguous stimulus, such as a, hazy picture. In supplying a meaning, the person is thought to “ project” his own beliefs, concerns, and motives.

 

Psychological tests that ask people to respond to a standard set of stimuli that are vague and ambiguous. These stimuli presumably evoke a person’s feelings, needs, and personality characteristics. People “project” their psychological reactions onto the test stimuli.

 

A test that draws out “unconscious” conflicts and motives through free-association responses to ambiguous stimuli.

 

Tests in which respondents are exposed to ambiguous stimuli; their interpretations of these stimuli presumably yield information about various aspects of their personalities.

 

These tests are far more indirect. An ambiguous stimulus is presented, and the test taker is asked what he sees in it or what he thinks will happen next. For example, the tester displays a picture of people at work in a hospital operating room; thoughts and feelings attributed to characters in the pictures disclose the respondent’s attitudes about work roles or about surgery. So called “projective” techniques, in particular, provide little structure. The test taker is free to project unconscious thoughts, wishes, and fears into the situation. The householder who interprets the creak in the dark as a burglar may be more anxious than one who interprets the same stimulus as a natural phenomenon and goes back to sleep.

 

 

B.     NATURE

 

A major distinguishing feature of projective techniques is to be found in their assignment of a relatively unstructured task, i.e., a task that permits an almost unlimited variety of possible responses. In order to allow free play to the individual’s fantasy, only brief, general instructions are provided. For the same reason, the test stimuli are usually vague or ambiguous. The underlying hypothesis is that the way in which the individual perceives and interprets the test material, or “structures” the situation, will reflect fundamental aspects of her or his psychological functioning. In other words, it is expected that the test materials will serve as a sort of screen on which respondents “project” their characteristic thought processes, needs, anxieties, and conflicts.

 

Typically, projective instruments also represent disguised testing procedures, insofar as test takers are rarely aware of the type of psychological interpretation that will be made of their responses. Projective techniques are likewise characterized by a global approach to the appraisal of personality. Attention is focused on a composite of the whole personality , rather than on the measurement of separate traits. Finally, projective techniques are usually regarded by their exponents as especially effective in revealing covert, latent, or unconscious aspects of personality. Moreover, the more unstructured the test, it is argued, the more sensitive it is to such covert material. This follows from the assumption that the more unstructured or ambiguous the stimuli, the less likely they are to evoke defensive reactions on the part of the respondent.

 

Projective methods originated within a clinical setting and have remained predominantly a tool for the clinician. Some have evolved from therapeutic procedures (such a s art therapy) employed with psychiatric patients. In their theoretical framework, most projective techniques reflect the influence of psychoanalytical concepts. There have also been scattered attempts to lay a foundation for projective techniques in stimulus-response theory ad in perceptual theories of personality. It should be noted, of course, that the specific techniques need not to be evaluated in the light of their particular theoretical slants or historical origins. A procedure may prove to be practically useful or empirically valid for reasons other than those initially cited to justify its introduction.

 

 

C.     ASSESSING PERSONALITY FROM THE PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE

 

Freud drew on free associations, slips of the tongue, and most of all, dreams to assess the personalities of his patients. This means, of course, that he relied on what his patients told him. Other clinicians and psychologists have tried to standardize various techniques that tap the unconscious. They use projective tests, in which subjects look at vague or ambiguous stimuli, the respond with free association, either by describing what they see or by telling a story about the stimulus. Since the subjects must provide the meaning themselves, their responses reflect the projections of their own unconscious motives, thoughts, and feelings onto the test stimulus. They way subjects interpret ambiguous material is supposed to reveal their personality characteristics. Some of the ambiguous materials are highly abstract images such as inkblots; other are concrete images, such as pictures of social situations.

 

According to Freudian and other psychodynamic theories, understanding people’s personalities may require indirect methods to get information about unconscious motives and conflicts, which subjects cannot report directly. One way to gain this kind of access is to use a projective test.

 

 

D. THE ASSUMPTIONS OF PROJECTIVE TESTING

 

The word “projective” holds the key to understanding these tests. In general projective tests are based on the assumption that people will project their needs, feelings, and conflicts onto ambiguous stimuli. Thus, many psychologists believe that if people are asked to respond to ambiguous stimuli such as inkblots or drawings, to give their associations to words, or to draw objects without specific instructions, their responses will reveal these unconscious needs, feelings, and conflicts. For example, if a woman is asked to say the first word that comes into her mind when she hears the word “mother,” the answer will give a clue about her unconscious concerns. Thus, the response “rage” could be an indication of hostility between the subject and her mother. Two of the best-known projective tests are the Rorschach Test and the thematic Apperception Test (TAT).

 

 

 

 

REFERENCES:

Anastasi, Anne. (1998) Psychological Testing (6^th edition). New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.

Baron, Robert A. (1989) Psychology (2^nd edition). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Bootzin, Richard R., et. al (1991) Psychology Today: An Introduction (7^th edition). New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.

Crider, Andrew B., et. al. (1989). Psychology (3^rd edition). Illinois: Scott, Foresman and Company.

Cronbach, Lee J. (1990). Essentials of Psychological Testing (5^th edition). New York: Harper and Row Publishers.

 

 

 

Prepared by:

 

MR. MARC ERIC S. REYES

Professor