Projective personality tests

Projective personality tests are based on the psychodynamic

approach, which believes that all actions are symbolically meaningful
and driven by unconscious motivations.

According to psychodynamic theory, our personality is unconsciously

driven, and thus can be drawn out through the use of projective tests,
rather than consciously answered on self-report questionnaires.

Projective measures of personality present unstructured stimuli, such as

inkblots, drawings of social situations, or incomplete sentences and
individual is asked to freely list what comes to mind as they think about
the stimuli. The response provided is said to reveal hidden emotions and
internal conflicts that are projected by the person onto the test.

Commonly used projective methods are the Rorschach inkblot test, The
thematic apperception test and Projective drawings.

We will briefly review each in turn prior to considering the overall

strengths and limitations of projective tests.

Rorschach inkblot test

The Rorschach inkblot test is one of the most well-known projective tests
of personality developed by the Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach
(1884–1922).
The test is a projective measure of personality in which the respondent
indicates their thoughts about a series of 10 symmetrical inkblots. The
participants are asked to respond to the inkblots, and their responses are
systematically scored in terms of what, where, and why they saw what
they saw.

The response given is believed to indicate an innermost desire or conflict

that best represents the individual’s personality. For example, people who
focus on the details of the inkblots may have obsessive-compulsive
tendencies, whereas those who talk about sex or aggression may have
sexual or aggressive problems.

To overcome the initial limitations associated with subjective scoring on

the part of the clinician the Exner scoring system was developed to
improve the overall reliability and validity of this measure.

Thematic apperception test

Another frequently administered projective test is the Thematic
apperception test (TAT), developed by the psychologist Henry Murray and
Christiana Morgan in the 1930s.

The TAT consists of a set of 32 black and white sketches of ambiguous

situations, most of them involving people, either alone or with others.
Looking at a card, one at a time, the respondents are asked to tell a story
about what is happening in the picture. Psychologists typically present
between 10 to 14 cards to each of their clients.

The TAT assumes that people may be unwilling or unable to admit their
true feelings when asked directly, but that these feelings will show up in
the stories about the pictures. Psychologists trained in the coding of these
responses then read the stories and use them to develop a personality
profile of the respondent. Typically, recurring themes in the client’s
responses to each card are used to build this profile.

Projective drawings
Projective drawings are a type of diagnostic technique in which an
individual, usually a child or adolescent, is required to draw a picture (e.g.,
person, house, or object) for the purpose of assessing personality,
cognitive abilities, or psychopathology.

Abnormal drawings are believed to be an indication of underlying

pathology. The most widely used projective drawing techniques are the
Draw-a-person test (DAP), the House-tree-person (HTP) test and the
Kinetic Family Drawing (KFD) test.

These drawing are analysed based on details such as relative size, shape,
colour, complexity of facial features, clothing and background. These
projective tests are believed to provide a useful means for gathering
information about wishes, desires, and fantasies that an individual is
unaware of and therefore unable to report.

Why carry out these tests?

The proposed advantage of these tests is that they are more indirect—they
allow the respondent to freely express whatever comes to mind, including
perhaps the contents of their unconscious experiences.

It is believed by psychodynamic theorists that these types of measures are

able to evade people’s defence mechanisms and therefore show their ‘true’
personality.
Despite their widespread use, the empirical (experimental) evidence
supporting the use of projective tests remains mixed. The reliability of the
measures is low because people often produce very different responses on
different occasions.

Despite some developing scoring and coding systems, projective tests

continue to difficult to score and objective interpret without significant
training. The construct validity of the measures is also suspect because
there are very few consistent associations between Rorschach scores or
TAT scores and most personality traits.

The projective tests often fail to distinguish between people with

psychological disorders and those without or to correlate with other
measures of personality or with behaviour.

How can they best be used?

Projective tests are probably most useful as icebreakers. They could be
utilised effectively to get to know a person, to make the person feel
comfortable, and to get some ideas about topics that may be of importance
to that person.

They are not ideally used to provide an accurate account of an individual’s

overall personality profile.