Personality Assessment Projective Tests

Introduction When you turn over the magazine, usually you will find a page or two on personality tests. Even though they are with no authority or accuracy, people get so addicted to them and follow the tests every week. The reason is that human beings always want to know more about the psyche of themselves or the others especially your boyfriend or girlfriend. In order to have a more precise description on the personality of oneself, we should know what a personality assessment should conduct. According to Leichtman (2004 as cited Coon & Mitterer, 2010), a personality assessment includes Interview, Observation, Questionnaires, projective test. We will look into projective test in particular. There are different kind of projective tests, for instance, Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT), Wechsler Memory Scale and Wechsler Intelligence Scale of Children. However, what we are going to focus on here are the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), Rorschach Inkblot Test and House Tree Test. In this essay, we will first research on what projective test is; then how the three tests we focus on are conducted and their interpretations on ones personality; and, finally, limitations and suggestions as our conclusion.

Projective test
1

Coon & Mitterer, (2010, P.418) states projective test is to uncover deeply hidden or unconscious wishes, thoughts, and needs. The test would have a person interprets an ambiguous social situation, when one is doing so, he or she would then expose his or her own personality and the phenomenon which he is attending. The attempt to explain an objective occurrence often reviews ones unconscious self and scrutiny of others. In other words, projective test discloses certain inner tendencies and cathexes, for instance, wishes, fears, and traces of past experience (Hersen, 2004, P.298).

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) Thematic Apperception Test is a popular projective test developed by personality theorist Henry Murray (1893- 1988) (Coon & Mitterer, 2010, P.418). How is it conducted? A TAT would make use of 20 cards (generally) with ambiguous pictures. The subject would then be instructed to make up a story includes what is occurring in the picture, for example, thoughts and feelings of the characters. The examiner, after the subject gives his or her story, would interpret the responses collected. The results are typically used to supplement other psychological tests; it produces highly rich, varied and, also, personal data that might theoretically skip a subjects conscious resistances (Marnat, 2003, P.477). Rorschach Inkblot Test Another test that we would further look into is Rorschach Inkblot Test or the
2

Inkblot Test. It is one of the oldest and most widely used projective tests that is developed by Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach in the 1920s (Coon & Mitterer, 2010, P.418).

Some psychologists say that the Rorschach is outdated, inaccurate and meaningless. Bartol (1983) stated that there is nothing to show what any particular response means to the person who gives it. And, he further said that there was nothing to show what it meant if a number of people gave the same response. He concluded that the inkblots were scientifically useless. Furthermore, another view of this test is that the interpreter himself is subjective toward the interpretation (Anastasi, 1982, p.582).

However, the Rorschach is really a popular and interesting test. It has its status as unconsciousness could be revealed more formally through the Rorschach inkblot test. These kinds of projective techniques allow the person's unconsciousness to release through inkblots and let them respond to the ambiguous stimuli so as to find out the latent personality. To conduct the test, the subject will be shown each blot and asked to describe what she or he sees. The psychologist may return to a blot, asking the person to

identify new impressions about what it contains (Hilsenroth, 2000 as cited Coon & Mitterer, 2010, P.418). The examiner would collect and record the responses and have them scored according to three general categories namely location, determinant and content (Carver & Scheier, 2004, P.239). Location refers to the area of the inkblot a subject focus on; determinants refer to specific properties of the blot they used in making their responses such as color, shapeetc.; content refers to the general class of objects to which the response belongs, like human, anatomy, architecture and so on. Such an interpretation is based on the relative number of responses that fall into each category. Some psychologists may include the organizational activities, types of verbalizations and the meaningful associations related to the inkblots (Marnat, 2003, P.407).

In order to investigate the test, we conduct a role play of the inkblot test. The subject, Lincoln, is being asked to describe the picture (plate II of inkblot test) in our case. He said that he saw two women fighting. When he was being asked to provide a more detail description, he assert that there must been some action done by the women. He suggested dancing or jumping. According to the responses made by Lincoln, he saw the picture as a base on whole blot, which was being identified to think conceptually. However, the most important thing is his response of the action

done by the women. He contended that there must have action happened such as fighting and dancing. His response indicated that he had a high degree of imagination as he based on perceived movement.

House Tree Person Test The last test that we are going to look into is the House Tree Person Test. The House-Tree-Person Test (HTP) is a projective test developed by Buck and Hammer (Isao F., Yasutoshi S., Tadatoshi T., Masatoshi M., & et al., 2002).

To commence with, the subject would be given three pieces of plain 8.5 inches x 11 inches papers. And, he would be asked to draw, first, a tree; then, a house; finally, a person in sequence separately on a plain paper. Meanwhile, questions about each picture drawn would be asked after it is drawn. Mostly, questions are about reasons, feelings during drawing and towards the picture drawn that is the house, tree and person.

The analysis of the subjects personality would be based on the answers given by the subject and also the interpretation of the pictures drawn. According to our own demonstrated experiment (see attachment 1), we first had Phoenix Chui, our group mate, to draw a house, a tree and a whole person under the instruction of Zoe Wan.
5

We then interpreted the drawing according to Richard Niolon, (Ph.D., Chicago School of Professional Psychology) guidelines. Phoenix Chui drew a house with a small window and door with thick and strong lines. The thickness of the drawing lines indicates the level of anxiety, so the tick and strong lines indicates that she is an anxious person. Windows and doors concern about the openness and willingness of one to interact with others and the environment, so the small window and door drew shows that she is open and willing to interact with others and the environment. As for the tree, she drew a Christmas tree under the instruction. According to Niolon, the strength of the trunk relates to the strength of ones ego, meanwhile particular kind of trees like Christmas trees shows that ones eagerness for holidays, family and good times. From the picture drew, the truck is in a moderate size which suggest that she has a moderate strength of ego. She does also long for or enjoy holidays and good times; it might suggest that she has a close relationship with her family too. For the person, one who drew the picture with opposite sex was not always willing to express his/herself. In this case, a little boy was drawn; it indicated that she is not that willing to express herself. On the other hand, Niolon suggests that the neck connecting the head and the body indicates the connection between the cognition and drives and needs of one. Nevertheless, there was no neck drawn for the person. This told there was no such connection in the drawers mind.
6

Conclusion Same as other tests, the tests mentioned above have its limitation. The first limitation is the low test- retest reliability and split half test is not applicable (Marnat, 2003, P.482). Reliability means consistency across repeated measurements (Carver & Scheier, 2004, p.51). It is commonly agreed that a test should be reliable to be used for test; however, when conducting the tests, it would be unrealistic to expect the subject give story towards the cards or draw pictures exactly the same as the one produced in the previous test.

In addition, a psychological test must be reliable to be valid; yet, split half reliability, an indicator as to the validity of a test, is inappropriate here (Marnat, 2003, P.482). Validity means a measures truthfulness or the degree to which it actually measures what it is intended to measure (Carver & Scheier, 2004, p.51). As we go through the tests, it is not difficult to discover the tests are subject to cultural difference, contextual influence, different interpretation arise from bias, needs or even expected expectation. Examiners with different backgrounds, values or expectations may come up with different interpretation towards the same set of story made up by subjects. For examples, when an English examiner interprets a Chinese subjects stories, the examiner may interpret in western way of thinking which then led to
7

whole different outcome as to those interpreted by a Chinese examiner.

The involvement of therapist is one of the limitations (Marnat, 2003, P.482). One may wonder: a test must have a therapist, how come the involvement of the therapist becomes a limitation? It could be explained by how the therapist conducts the test. As mention above, a subject would be instructed by the examiner to make up stories. The subject could be affected by the instruction given which shows how sensitive the test is to the effects of instruction. The subjects culture, value or perception of the instruction may lead to different sets of stories. On the other hand, a therapist might ask leading questions when interpreting or when conducting the test. It may result in a different outcome when the therapist gives instruction in a strong or threatening tone rather than a moderate tone. On top of that, the result may also subject to bias, needs and expectation of the examiners and the subjects (Marnat, 2003, P.482). The examiner might give an interpretation in a way that he or she wants it to be in favor of the examiners subjective or defaulted standpoint. Since the Thematic Apperception Test ask subjects to make up story with sets of cards, it then produced wide variability among different stories, possibly due to incomparableness of various cards (Lindzey & Herman, 1955 as cited Marnat, 2003, P.482).

Last but not least, there is no consistent scoring system. Test results often or mainly base on examiners own interpretation which lack of clear rationales (Hersen, 2004, P.310). For example, in the sample test we conducted during our presentation, a thick line in our group mate Johnnys eyes maybe a thin line in anothers eyes.

Notwithstanding the limitations, personality tests have its significance and usefulness in determining ones personalities. What one has to note and bear in mind is that personality is subject to many different factors in which one has to consider when determining a persons personalities. (1877 words)