Projective methods in assessment Flashcards
Projective methods
Technique of personality assessment in which some judgment of the assessed personality is made on the basis of performance on a task that involves supplying some sort of structure
to unstructured or incomplete stimuli
Projective hypothesis
Individual supplies structure to unstructured
stimuli in a manner consistent with the individual’s own unique pattern of conscious and unconscious needs, fears, desires, impulses, conflicts, and ways of perceiving and responding
Advantages of projective methods
- cross-cultural
- minimised need for language skills
- uses both conscious and unconscious
- indirect
- reduces self-serving bias
Rorschach inkblot test
Uses a subject’s interpretation of inkblot designs to assess personality traits and emotional tendencies
Rorschach inkblot test - administration
- Examiner does not engage in any discussion and records all relevant information
- Subject has a great deal of freedom
- “What might this be?”
Rorschach inkblot test - scoring
Location, determinants, content, popularity, form
Rorschach inkblot test - disadvantages
Levels of test–retest reliability and interrater reliability are frequently rather low.
The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
Involves describing ambiguous scenes to learn more about a person’s emotions, motivations, and personality
TAT and situational factors
- examiner
- how test is administered
- subject’s experiences prior and during the testing
- physiological needs
TAT is based on?
Henry Murray’s concepts of need, press and thema
How is TAT understood?
- Subject identifies with someone in the story (protagonist)
- Things that are presented in the story (conflicts, demands, environment) can be related to hopes, fears, desires or concerns of the subject
Words as projective stimuli
Employ words or open-ended phrases and sentences are referred to as semi-structured
techniques
Sounds as projective stimuli
Skinner created a series of recorded sounds much like muffled, spoken vowels, to which
people would be instructed to associate
Drawings as projective stimuli
Quick, easily administered projective technique that can provide the psycho-diagnostician with a wealth of clinical hypotheses
Psychometry and projective tests
- uncontrolled variations in protocol length
- inappropriate subject samples
- inadequate control groups
- Poor external criteria as factors contributing to spuriously increased ratings of validity
