Projective Testing

Projective Testing on Children - Advantages of Different Techniques So many different factors are involved in prediction of how a child might grow up, what his or her proclivities will be, and whether that child will be predisposed to violence. Often, cultural and socio-economic conditions will play a huge role. For instance, a child who has been beaten by a father is more likely to beat his own children or his spouse.

Or, a child growing up in a dangerous, crime-infested inner-city neighborhood is likely to follow in the footsteps of the wrong role models. But over the years, several tests grounded in various hard and social sciences like psychology, psychiatry, biology, economics, sociology and political economy have emerged to offer credible projective testing for children. Lawrence Frank set the stage for projective testing in 1939: "When people try to understand vague or ambiguous unstructured stimuli, the interpretation they produce reflects their needs, feelings, experience, prior conditioning, thought processes." (Frank, 1939).

The main challenge is, which particular needs, feelings, prior conditioning and thought processes are and should be relevant in projective testing? Experts from various disciplines tried to answer that very question mainly during the 1940s through 1960s, the psychoanalytical era. This paper will explore several of those methods, distinguishing between them and discussing relative strengths and weaknesses. The most famous of these tests is the Rorschach test. By far, the Rorschach test is the most widely used of the projective tests.

In a 1971 survey of test usage, it was used in 91% of clinical trials. (U. Alberta) The Rorschach tests uses inkblots to measure several indicators of a child's proclivities. In 1857, Kerner revealed that people can make idiosyncratic or revealing interpretations and these interpretations may be used to judge and measure personality. But it was not until 1911 that Herman Rorschach suggested that inkblots can be used to reveal these interpretations. At first the test was ill-received, but as we all know, its legacy lives on today.

Essentially, the stimuli were generated by dropping ink onto a card and folding it. The cards selected are not random: Originally, 10 were hand-selected by Rorschach from the thousands he had created. The test itself is administered with as little information and instruction as possible. Usually, the tester will simply ask, "What might this be?" And gives no clue or hint as to what the proper response might be. If anxious test-takers ask questions, sometimes testers give vague answers.

To minimize the effect that the testers' facial expressions may have on the test takers, the testers may sit beside the test takers. Both the orientation of the card and the subject's response are recorded for later interpretation. The cards are shown twice, the first time just for identification and the second time for elaboration. After plugging the responses into a number of determinative factors, the testers and interpreters will score the test.

However, there is no hard and fast quantitative way to score the Rorschach test; rather, the scoring is almost entirely qualitative.

The traits the Rorschach test is meant to measure are: Passive Receptive Direction (passivity, receive tendency) Oral Aggressive Direction (primitive aggressive impulses conjoined with incorporation or fear of oral aggressive attack, pertinently deprivation of oral aggression Anal Direction (liking or disliking of feces, defecation, dirt, disorder, disease, bacillus, imperfection, mistakes; defiance/attraction to destruction, soil/dirty) Sadistic Direction (also the fear from inner sadistic impulses) Masochistic Direction Theme of Authority (power; high society status; submission; defiance to authority) Infantilism Weakness, insufficient (also fear from weakness) Fear, anxiety Paronodity Sex-identity disorder (men) (feminine traits) Sex-identity disorder (women) masculine traits) Emotional Tone Centrum, 1999, (http://www.centrum.fss.muni.cz/Scenotest/text/ROR.pdf) The strengths of the Rorschach test are that it is very simple to administer and that it is widely recognized as a valuable progressive test.

The primary weakness of the test is that it is so qualitative and not quantitative. Also, another weakness is the social conditions that have changed since the test's inception rendering some of the testing areas moot today. The House-Tree-Person Test was developed by John Buck: "The House-Tree-Person (H-T-P) projective technique developed by John Buck was originally an outgrowth of the Goodenough scale utilized to assess intellectual functioning. Buck felt artistic creativity represented a stream of personality characteristics that flowed onto graphic art.

He believed that through drawings, subjects objectified unconscious difficulties by sketching the inner image of primary process. Since it was assumed that the content and quality of the H-T-P was not attributable to the stimulus itself, he believed it had to be rooted in the individual's basic personality.

Since the H-T-P was an outcropping of an intelligence test, Buck developed a quantitative scoring system to appraise gross classification levels of intelligence along with at qualitative interpretive analysis to appraise global personality characteristics." (Nova, 1999: (http://www.cps.nova.edu/~cpphelp/HTP.html) The House-Tree-Person test itself consists of 60 questions ranging from the direct and concrete to the indirect and abstract. Once the interrogation form has been completed and the questions asked, the tester records the results in a score test folder.

From those numeric results, the tester develops an intelligence quotient, ranging from imbecile to moron to borderline to dull average to above average to superior. These scores are also used for various personality projective testing as well, and in fact, today the House-Tree-Person test is used more for personality projective testing than it is for IQ testing. The advantages of the House-Tree-Person test are that it is more quantitative than the Rorschach test.

However, the disadvantage is that it is less interpretive in nature: The subjects have more options in the Rorschach test as far as responses go, so generally more can be interpreted from Rorschach data. The sentence completion test is yet another device used in projective testing: In the sentence completion method, respondents are given incomplete sentences and asked to complete the thought. These sentences are usually in the third person and tend to be somewhat ambiguous.

For example, the following sentences would provide striking differences in how they were completed depending on the personality of the respondent: beach vacation is Taking a holiday in the mountains is...." Golfing is for..." The average person considers skiing People who visit museums are (http://www.ryerson.ca/~mjoppe/ResearchProcess/841process6b1c4bf.htm) This test is very easy to administer again, and measures more qualitatively how children react to certain situations and possibilities.

However, since there is more structure to the sentence completion test, it also reigns in the possibilities of replies. As a result, it is less helpful in.