Personality Assessment – Projective Techniques Flashcards
(34 cards)
Explain the projective hypothesis
Projective techniques require the client to respond to ambiguous stimuli
Projective hypothesis: Assume that the client will “project” his/her characteristic thoughts, feelings, etc.
onto the material
- Perception: what the person responds to
- Interpretation: how the person responds
* Interpreter examines responses for clues as to personality
Two separate meanings of ‘projections’
- Unconscious defence against unacceptable impulses in self by ascribing them to individuals or objects external to self (Freudian)
- Normal process in which inner states influence perception and interpretation of the external world
Are projective tests nomothetic?
No. They are very idiographic. No reference to other groups.
Do projective tests have good psychometric properties?
No. They fail as psychometric tools. But have high popularity still in clinical settings. e.g. 53% still use rorschach.
Discuss the Development of Projective Techniques
TWO influences in the first two decades of the 20th Century…
1) Theoretical development
• Psychoanalytic theory (freud-idea of accessing unconscious).
• Gestalt or holistic theories (preservation of unique self, looking at person as a whole).
2) Psychometric vs clinical tradition
• Psychometric: Standardised measurement; reliability and validity; focus on normal characteristics; search for traits
• Clinical: Careful, detailed study of the individual; focus on disturbed individuals; less interest in precise measurement; holistic approach (today in clinics its not surprising they use them still because we’ve moved towards holistic approaches).
What characteristics do all projective tests have in common?
- Stimuli are vague or ambiguous (Only brief general instructions are given)
- Use of an unstructured task – a task that permits an unlimited variety of possible responses (unlike the structure of self-reports!).
- Use disguised testing procedures (just means test takers themselves are rarely aware of the construct its testing, unlike self report where the items are quite obviously testing something. SO face validity of projective tests here is LOWER than self reports).
- Characterised by a global approach to the assessment of personality
- Regarded as effective in revealing covert or unconscious aspects of personality (covert meaning parts of the personality the patient is unaware they had).
- Primarily used as a clinical tool
Advantages of Projective Techniques over Self-Report Tests
two
- Capacity to bypass or circumvent the conscious defenses of respondents
- Capacity to allow clinicians privileged access to important psychological information of which respondents are unaware
one disadvantage of Projective Techniques over Self-Report Tests
DIFFICULT to determine in projective tests whether individual is faking or not
or being socially desirable, compared to self report.
Example of inkblot test?
The Rorschach
Example of Pictorial techniques?
Thematic Apperception Test
Verbal techniques examples (2) ?
- Word association tests
* Sentence completion
Performance techniques
- Drawing techniques: Draw-a-Person Test
* Play techniques and Toy tests
What is the association technique related to the Rorschach?
association technique: we see an unfamiliar object and make sense of it through familiar ideas/memories of our worlds.
What does the Rorschach involve? like how many inkblots
10 symmetrical inkblots on separate cards: 5 black and white; 2 contain red; 3 combine pastel shades
What are the two phases in the Rorschach?
- Association: you record what they say
* Inquiry: why and how they came to that conclusion of what it is
A variety of systems for scoring and interpretation Rorschach exist…
- S. Beck: A perceptual-cognitive process – responses
- Klopfer: A phenomenological approach (Freudian and Jungian) – responses are fantasies
- Piotrowski, Hertz, Rapapport: fall between Beck & Klopfer
Characteristics scoring categories have in common (4).
Have in common scoring categories
• Location: Where in the inkblot did the person find the response they had
• Determinants: answering why, was it the form, shape, colour that made you respond this way
• Content: what was it about. art, nature, abstract?
• Popular responses: if they use colour: maybe they’re emotional person. If movement: rich imagination and fantasy life.
Who is John Exner (1970’s), and what is Exner’s Comprehensive System?
- Criticised the disparate approaches to the Rorschach
- Advocated standardised administration, scoring and interpretation
- Emphasis on the structural rather than content variables
- Provides normative data for US adults and children and reference data for psychiatric samples
The interpretation of these scores is still subjective, despite his effort.
Comments on the Rorschach
1) Norms
2) Reliability
3) Validity
4) :) smile!
Norms
• result in over-pathologising of normal US adults; insufficient representation of minorities (1 in 6 adults were seen to have pathology lol).
• However, recently a new “reference” sample was collected (Meyer et al., 2007)
Reliability
• Scorer reliability: Exner included no categories in which interscorer reliability was less than .85. poor guy tried hard.
• Test-retest reliability (of scoring): .3 to .9; but only calculated for 40% of variables
Validity • Most problematic because of different systems of scoring and interpreting; and variety of uses • A recent meta-analysis (Mihura et al., 2013) found 40 variables had good to excellent support for their validity (mean r = .27) while 13 variables had little or no support when compared against externally assessed criteria (e.g., observer ratings, diagnoses) • Overall, few validity studies have been done (relative to the number of validity studies for self- report measures of personality)
What is the thematic apperception test (TAT)?
How many cards?
• 31 cards – 20 are used for testing
• 19 cards containing ambiguous pictures in black and white and one blank
card
• Two 1-hour sessions with 10 cards in each session
• Respondents construct a story: what lead up to the scene, what the characters
are thinking and feeling, what will be the outcome
• A construction technique: story-telling; require complex cognitive activities
How to interpret the TAT?
original method of scoring was CONTENT ANALYSIS
Hero: person has identified him or herself with.
Needs: forces which organise the way we think and act to
resolve unsatisfying situations e.g.achievement needs aggression needs.
Press: forces that might interfere with our needs e.g. being attacked, not safe.
What are the most frequent response characteristics of TAT that a clinician will analyse?
Most frequent response characteristics/provides a general interpretation framework • The way the card is perceived • The themes developed • The roles ascribed to the characters • Emotional tones expressed • Speed of responses • Length of stories
BUT USE OF “SUBJECTIVE NORMS” is common :)
What are the most frequent response characteristics of TAT that a clinician will analyse?
Most frequent response characteristics/provides a general interpretation framework • The way the card is perceived • The themes developed • The roles ascribed to the characters • Emotional tones expressed • Speed of responses • Length of stories
BUT USE OF “SUBJECTIVE NORMS” is common :)
Comments on the TAT
1) Non-personality variables can influence the stories told
• Personal variables: gender, social class
• Situational variables
(MAKES US WONDER: are we testing personality? or other situational constructs? CONSTRUCT VALIDITY BAD.
2) Interpreting themes is confounded by fantasy and inhibition – Validity becomes difficult to establish e.g. you dont know what that response is telling you
3) Interpreters tend to over-pathologise
