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Rorschach inkblot test is a projective personality test that has been one of the major projective personality assessments used by psychologists since the 1940s (Aiken & Groth-Marnat, 2006). The test is named after Hermann Rorschach who developed the inkblots in 1921. The Rorschach inkblot test consists of 10 cards with inkblots on them (five black and white and five colored) and is currently marketed by Pearson Assessments. The test is designed to be used with individuals five years of age and older (Exner, 2002). The test is reported to generally take about an hour to administer, although it certainly can take significantly longer than that.
The major assumption of projective tests is that environmental stimuli are organized by a person based on their own motives, needs, perceptions, and conflicts. The need to organize environmental stimuli becomes more salient when the stimuli are ambiguous and do not have culturally or socially defined parameters associated with them (Aiken & Groth-Marnat, 2006). The principle on which the Rorschach is based is that the process at which a person approaches and organizes the responses to the ambiguous stimuli on the Rorschach cards is representative of how they approach other situations that require them to organize information and make judgments about situations in their lives.
The test is administered in two general phases following a set of standardized instructions to the client: (1) a free association stage where the individual simply describes what the inkblot is in their subjective viewpoint, and (2) a longer inquiry phase where the administrator reviews the responses produced in...
The responses are scored based on three categories of the individual's responses: (1) the location or area of the inkblots that the person chose to make their response, (2) the specific properties of the plot that led to the response such as the shape or color (known as the "determinants"), and (3) the content of the response which refers to a number of different categories that are consistent with the response (e.g., face, human, animal, architecture, etc.; Exner, 2002).
One of the major issues with early versions of scoring interpretation for the Rorschach was that there was abysmal inter-rater reliability for the test (Exner, 2002). There are a number of scoring methods that have been developed in order to maximize reliability and to interpret Rorschach responses; however, the most popular one is the Rorschach Comprehensive Scoring System (RCS) developed by Exner in 1969 and upgraded many times since then (Exner, 2002). The RCS is derived from the standardization sample of over 2000 individuals ranging from the age of five to adults in their 80s (Exner, 2002). This system produces over 70 different variables (65 main variables) based on the three scoring criteria which can be quite complex to calculate and are often calculated via computer scoring system. The variables in the RCS are designed to measure things from psychosis proneness, emotional control, perceptual accuracy, motivation, and even the potential for suicidal ideation and depression. Given the large number of psychological variables that the Rorschach is alleged to measure reliability and validity studies…
Reference
Aiken, L.R. & Groth-Marnat, G. (2006). Psychological testing and assessment (12th ed.).
Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Exner, J. (2002). The Rorschach: A Comprehensive System. Volume 1: The Rorschach, basic foundations and principles of interpretation. New York: Wiley and Sons.
Lilienfeld, S.O., Lynn, S.J., & Lohr, J.M. (Eds.). (2012). Science and pseudoscience in clinical psychology. New York: Guilford Press.
In other words, instead of simply asking the patient what he sees in the inkblot, the clinician will say something like 'To you does this image look more like a person, an animal, a flower, or a food?' Juni (1993) asserts that this approach reduces the need for "trained judges" to interpret the results, and also provides a sense of standardization that maximizes the projective content. The phenomenon known as
While different scorers might have very different reactions to a subject that saw a bunny in one blot, for example, the use of color and white space was thought to be something more observable than opinionated. However, the controversy about the test is far from 'blotted out' by Exner's system. Despite its use in court-ordered assessments of mental stability and the fact that "a great strength of Exner's system
client was depressed how might the Rorschach scoring appear? The Rorschach inkblot test is a projective test: subjects view a series of standardized inkblots and their subjective impressions to the test are recorded and scored. "The theory underlying Rorschach's technique was that in the course of interpreting a random inkblot, attention would be drawn away from the subject so that the person's usual psychological defenses would be weakened" ("Projections of
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Further, the subjectivity in scoring and interpretation is a huge issue (Sutherland, 1992). For example, if one believes that a relationship exists between say, a Rorschach feature such as color and a personality trait such as emotional style, then one's prior beliefs can bias judgment (Vyse, 1997). As evidence, psychologists were prone to say a relationship existed between a test response and a psychological condition -- if it accorded
Psychological Test There have been many definitions of a test. For example, Kline (1993, P. 16) defines a psychological test as a standardized measure of behavior. Hogan (2007, p.41) considers such definitions lacking and instead offers a more comprehensive definition, "A test is a standardized process or device that yields information about a sample of behavior or cognitive processes in a quantified manner." Categories of Psychological Tests According to Hogan (2007) there