Projective Techniques

Overview Of Projective Techniques
A projective technique is a type of personality test in which you offer responses

to ambiguous scenes, words, or images. The goal of such tests is to uncover the hidden
conflicts or emotions that you project onto the test with the hope that these issues can
then be addressed through psychotherapy or other appropriate treatments.
Explanation: These techniques are useful in giving respondents opportunities to

express their attitudes without personal embarrassment. These techniques help the
respondents to project his/her own attitude and feelings unconsciously.
Origins of Projective Tests
This type of test emerged from the psychoanalytic school of thought, which
suggested that people have unconscious thoughts or urges. Projective tests are
intended to uncover feelings, desires, and conflicts that are hidden from conscious
awareness.
 By interpreting responses to ambiguous cues, psychoanalysts hope to

uncover unconscious feelings that might be causing problems in a
person's life.
How Projective Tests Work
In many projective tests, people are shown an ambiguous image and then asked to give
the first response that comes to mind.
Explanation: By providing you with a question or stimulus that is not clear, your
underlying and unconscious motivations or attitudes are revealed.
Types of Projective Tests
There are a number of different types of projective tests. Some of the best-known
examples include:
The Rorschach Inkblot Test - 1921 by a Swiss psychologist named Hermann

Rorschach
This test was one of the first projective tests developed and continues to be one of the
best-known and most widely used. The test consists of 10 different cards that depict an
ambiguous inkblot.
Explanation: People are shown one card at a time and asked to describe what
they see in the image. The responses are recorded verbatim by the tester. Gestures,
the tone of voice, and other reactions are also noted.
Examples:
The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) - created in the 1930s by Henry

Murray, an American psychologist, and a psychoanalyst named Christiana Morgan
In the TAT test, people are asked to look at a series of ambiguous scenes and
then to tell a story describing the scene. This includes describing what is happening,
how the characters are feeling, and how the story will end. The Thematic Apperception
Test cards consist of ambiguous black-and-white images. The TAT pictures may include
illustrations of men, women, and children in various situations. When testing a client,
clinicians typically administer between 5 and 12 of the cards.
Explanation: As persons taking the TAT proceed through the various story cards
and tell stories about the pictures, reveal their
expectations of relationships with peers, parents
or other authority figures, subordinates, and
possible romantic partners. In addition to
assessing the content of the stories that the
subject is telling, the examiner evaluates the
subject’s manner, vocal tone, posture,
hesitations, and other signs of an emotional
response to a particular story picture.
To score the TAT, the examiner will

analyze each of the subject's stories based on
the following aspects:
Content of the story — This may reveal a person's attitudes, beliefs, expectations,
inner conflicts, and views on the world.
Emotional tone of the story — Emotions such as sadness, fear, anger, happiness, or
anxiety can provide the examiner with insight.
Subject's behavior while telling the story — Changes in voice, poor eye contact,
fidgeting, pausing, and hesitancy.
The Draw-A-Person Test
This type of projective test involves exactly what you might imagine. People draw
a person and the image that they created is then assessed by the examiner.
To score the test, the test interpreter might look at a number of factors. These
may include the size of particular parts of the body or features, the level of detail given
to the figure, as well as the overall shape of the drawing.
Explanation: Typically used with children, the subject is asked to draw a picture
of a man, a woman, and themselves. No further instructions are given and the pictures
are analyzed on a number of dimensions. Aspects such as the size of the head,
placement of the arms, and even things such as if teeth were drawn or not. The
personality traits can be anything from aggressiveness, to homosexual tendencies, to
relationships with their parents, to introversion and extroversion.
A test interpreter might suggest that certain aspects of the drawing are indicative of
particular psychological tendencies. However, it might simply mean that the individual
has poor drawing skills.
Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank (RISB) -

by Julian Rotter in 1950
The tests include 40 incomplete

sentences that people are asked to complete
as quickly as possible. The average time for completing the test is approximately 20
minutes, as responses are only 1–2 words in length. This test is similar to a word
association test, and like other types of projective tests, it is presumed that responses
will reveal desires, fears, and struggles.
The House-Tree-Person Test - John Buck
In this type of projective test, people are asked to draw a house, a tree, and a
person. Once the drawing is complete, they are asked a series of questions about the
images they have drawn. Administrators may also come up with their own questions or
follow-up queries to further explore the subject's responses. For example, the test
administrator might ask of the house drawing:
Who lives here?
Who visits the person who lives here?
Is the person who lives here happy?
Explanation: For the House-Tree-Person test, a client may be instructed to draw

a house, tree, and person all on one sheet of paper, or the client may be instructed to
draw the house, tree, and person separately on three sheets of paper. In each instance
the drawings are interpreted for signs of psychopathology.
Weaknesses
Projective tests are most frequently used in therapeutic settings. In many cases,
therapists use these tests to learn qualitative information about individuals.
While projective tests have some benefits, they also have a number of weaknesses and
limitations, including:
Projective tests that do not have standard grading scales tend to lack both
validity and reliability. Validity refers to whether or not a test is measuring what it
purports to measure, while reliability refers to the consistency of the test results.
Scoring projective tests is highly subjective, so interpretations of answers can

vary dramatically from one examiner to the next.
The respondent's answers can be heavily influenced by the examiner's attitudes

or the test setting.

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Overview Of Projective Techniques

A projective technique is a type of personality test in which you offer responses

Explanation: These techniques are useful in giving respondents opportunities to

Origins of Projective Tests

 By interpreting responses to ambiguous cues, psychoanalysts hope to

How Projective Tests Work

Types of Projective Tests

The Rorschach Inkblot Test - 1921 by a Swiss psychologist named Hermann

The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) - created in the 1930s by Henry

To score the TAT, the examiner will

The Draw-A-Person Test

Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank (RISB) -

The tests include 40 incomplete

Who lives here?

Who visits the person who lives here?

Is the person who lives here happy?

Explanation: For the House-Tree-Person test, a client may be instructed to draw

Scoring projective tests is highly subjective, so interpretations of answers can

The respondent's answers can be heavily influenced by the examiner's attitudes

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