MPCE-012: BLOCK 4

PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES IN PSYCHODIAGNOSTICS

UNIT 1

INTRODUCTION TO PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES AND NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL TEST

INTRODUCTION AND CONCEPT

Projective techniques are an approach to gaining insights into consumer perceptions and behavior in
contexts where the response to a direct questionnaire may be complex or where only socially
acceptable, although not truthful, responses can be expected. There is a wide range of projective
techniques with a common origin in clinical psychiatry that have been adapted to consumer research
to a greater or lesser extent. The popularity of some of the aforementioned techniques—for
example, word association—relies on their ease of application and interpretation against other more
complex techniques, such as role playing. Projective techniques allow the use of various strategies in
a more playful and participative atmosphere than traditional research, which makes consumer
research an easier task.

Nevertheless, projective techniques have certain weaknesses that also need to be taken into
account, such as the complexity of data analysis and interpretation of the findings.

Projective Techniques are indirect and unstructured methods of investigation which have been
developed by the psychologists and use projection of respondents for inferring about underline
motives, urges or intentions which cannot be secure through direct questioning as the respondent
either resists to reveal them or is unable to figure out himself. These techniques are useful in giving
respondents opportunities to express their attitudes without personal embarrassment.

INTRODUCTION AND CONCEPT

Projective techniques are an approach to gaining insights into consumer perceptions and behavior in
contexts where the response to a direct questionnaire may be complex or where only socially
acceptable, although not truthful, responses can be expected. There is a wide range of projective
techniques with a common origin in clinical psychiatry that have been adapted to consumer research
to a greater or lesser extent. The popularity of some of the aforementioned techniques—for
example, word association—relies on their ease of application and interpretation against other more
complex techniques, such as role playing. Projective techniques allow the use of various strategies in
a more playful and participative atmosphere than traditional research, which makes consumer
research an easier task.

Nevertheless, projective techniques have certain weaknesses that also need to be taken into
account, such as the complexity of data analysis and interpretation of the findings.

Projective Techniques are indirect and unstructured methods of investigation which have been
developed by the psychologists and use projection of respondents for inferring about underline
motives, urges or intentions which cannot be secure through direct questioning as the respondent
either resists to reveal them or is unable to figure out himself. These techniques are useful in giving
respondents opportunities to express their attitudes without personal embarrassment.

BASIC ASSUMPTIONS

1. that specific responses reflect the person's personality and / or psychodynamic functioning.
 2. that each and every response is indeed basic and reflective of some major personal themes.

3. that perception is an active and selective process, and thus what is perceived is influenced
not only by the person's current needs and motivation, but by that person's unique history
and the person's habitual ways of dealing with the world.

4. The more ambiguous a situation the more the responses will reflect individual differences in
attempting to structure and respond to that situation.

Thus, projective tests are seen as ideal miniature situations, where presentation can be controlled
and resulting responses carefully observed.

OVERVIEW OF PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES

Most psychologists use a small number of preferred projective tests-typically the Rorschach, the
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), Projective Drawings, and Incomplete Sentences.

THE RORSCHACH TEST

The Rorschach Test is the famous inkblot test (Rorschach, 1921,1942, 1951). The Rorschach consists
of 10 inkblots that are symmetrical; that is, the left side of each card is essentially a mirror image of
the right side. The same 10 inkblots have been used (in the same order of presentation) since they
were first developed by Herman Rorschach in1921 (Rorschach, 1921, 1942). Half of the cards are
black, white, and gray, and half use color. While there are several different ways to administer the
Rorschach and score, the vast majority of psychologists today use the method developed by John
Exner (Exner, 1974, 1976, 1986, 1993, 2003; Exner & Weiner, 1995).

Each card is handed to the patient with the question, "What might this be?" The psychologist writes
down everything the patient says verbatim. During this free association portion of the test, the
psychologist does not question the patient. After all 10 cards are administered; the psychologist
shows the patient each card a second time and asks questions that will help in scoring he test. For
example, the psychologist might say, "Now I’d like to show you the cards once again and ask you
several questions about each card so that I can be sure that I see it as you do."

OVERVIEW

THE THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST (TAT)

The TAT (Murray & Bellack, 1942; Tomkins, 1947) was developed during the late 1930s by Henry
Murray and Christiana Morgan at Harvard University, The TAT was originally designed to measure
personality factors in research settings.

Specifically, it was used to investigate goals, central conflicts, needs, press (i.e., factors that facilitate
or impede progress towards reaching goals) and achievement strivings associated with Henry
Murray's theory of personology (Murray,1938).

The TAT consists of 31 pictures (one of which is blank), most all of which depict people rather than
objects. Some of the pictures are designed to he administered to males, some to females, and others
to both genders.

Generally only a selected number of cards (e.g., 10) are administered to anyone patient. The
psychologist introduces the test by telling the patient that he or she will be given a series of pictures
and requested to tell a story about each. The patient is instructed to make up a story that reflects
what the people in the picture are thinking, feeling, and doing and also to speculate on what led up
to the events depicted in the picture and what will happen in the future. After each card is presented
to the patient, the psychologist writes down everything that is said verbatim.

Although a variety of complex scoring approaches have been developed (Murray,1943; Shneidman,
1951), most clinicians use their clinical experience and judgment to analyse the themes that emerge
from the patient's stories. Since clinicians generally do not officially score the TAT, conducting
reliability and validity research is challenging.

PROJECTIVE DRAWINGS

Many clinician's ask both children and adults to draw pictures in order to assess their psychological
functioning. Typically, people are asked to draw a house, a tree, a person, and their family doing
something together. For the Draw a Person test (Machover, 1949), the House Tree Person Technique
(Buck, 1948), and the Kinetic Family Drawing Technique, the patient is instructed to draw each
picture in pencil on a separate blank piece of paper and to avoid the use of stick figures.

On the assumption that a drawing tells us some thing about its creator, clinicians often ask clients to
draw human figures and talk about them. Evaluations of these drawings are based on the details and
shape of the drawing, solidity of the pencil line, location of the drawing on the paper, size of the
figures, features of the figures, use of background, and comments made by the respondent during
the . drawing task. In the Draw a Person (DAP) Test, the most popular of the drawing tests, subjects
are first told to draw "a person," and then are instructed to draw another person of the opposite sex.

SENTENCE COMPLETION TECHNIQUES

Another projective technique involves the use of sentence completion. There are many different
versions of this technique (e.g., Forer,1957; P. A. Goldberg, 1965; Lanyon & Lanyon,1980; Rotter,
1954; Rotter & Rafferty, 1950).The patient is presented (either orally by the examiner or in writing
through a questionnaire) a series of sentence fragments. These might include items such as, "When
he answered the phone he " or "Most mothers are "

The patient is asked to give the first response that he or she thinks of and complete the sentence.
Again, like projective drawings and the TAT, several scoring systems have been developed to assist in
interpretation. However, these scoring approaches are generally used only in research settings. Most
clinicians prefer to use their own experience and clinical judgment to interpret the themes that
emerge from the completed sentences.

MERITS OF PROJECTIVE TESTS

Until 1950s the projective tests were used in a large scale by the clinicians, but after that the
techniques gradually started losing their importance. They are used to gain "supplementary" insights.
One reason for this shift is that practitioners who follow the newer models have less use for the tests
than psychodynamic clinicians do. Even more important, the tests have rarely demonstrated much
reliability or validity. Standardized procedures for administering and scoring the tests have been
developed in order to improve scoring consistency, but research suggests that the reliability of
projective tests remains weak even when such procedures are used (Wood et al., 2000; Lilienfeld et
al., 2000).

Research has also challenged the validity of projective tests. When clinician's try to describe a client's
personality and feelings on the basis of responses to projective tests, their conclusions often fail to
match the self-report of the client, the view of the psychotherapist, or the picture gathered from an
extensive case history. Another validity problem is that projective tests are sometimes biased against
minority ethnic groups.

NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS

CONCEPT

Organic injury to the brain can have complex and interacting psychological effects, not only at the
level of intellectual impairment but also at the levels of affective and behavioural disturbance.
Neuropsychological assessment can be highly important to clarification of the problem, to prediction
of the functional consequences and to the development of appropriate interventions or
environmental adaptations.

PURPOSE

• Description and measurement of organically based cognitive deficits.

• Differential diagnosis (e.g. to ascertain whether memory problems arise from organic injury or
mood disturbances).

• Prediction of the consequences of neurosurgical excision of brain tissue (e.g. the cost-benefits likely
to accrue from a temporal lobectomy).

• Monitoring improvement or deterioration associated with recovery from, or exacerbation of, a

neurological condition.

• Evaluation of the neuropsychological effects, positive or adverse, of pharmacological and non-

pharmacological treatments (e.g. to determine whether a psychological intervention has improved
attention, or whether an anticonvulsant might impair learning).

• Guiding rehabilitation strategies. I

• Predicting or explaining deficits in social, educational, or occupational functioning.

• Medico-legal evaluations (e.g. contributing to determination of compensation awards, ascertaining

fitness to plead, etc.).

DIMENSIONS AND LEVEL OF ASSESSMENT

A major element of many neuropsychological assessments is evaluation of the patient's intellectual

functioning, usually tested via formal pen and paper or computerized test procedures. However, this
is neither the only form of assessment

used nor necessarily the most important. If the presenting problem is one of behavioural or
emotional disturbance, assessment may concentrate on the systematic collection of information
either from the patient or from others concerning factors which may influence its occurrence. Thus,
although neuropsychological assessment is often perceived as a special form of cognitive
assessment, it is very often much broader than this. In practice, a referral to a neuropsychologist will
often result in a multidimensional assessment in which the presenting problem is analysed from a
number of perspectives rather than just one. Sometimes there may be no formal testing, if the
pertinent information can be gleaned from systematic behavioural observations and interviews.

At a general level, the purpose of neuropsychological assessment may be categorized into those
which are primarily descriptive and those which are explanatory. The former represents an attempt
to identify the type and severity of any problems, while the latter entails more theoretically driven
procedures designed to illuminate the causes or consequences of an observed deficit. These two
aspects will be differentially important depending on the nature of the initial question.

OVERVIEW

Neuropsychological testing assesses brain behaviour skills such as intellectual, abstract reasoning,
memory, visual-perceptual, attention, concentration, gross and fine motor, and language functioning.

Neuropsychological tests include test batteries as well as individual tests.

The Halstead Reitan Battery (Boll, 1981; Halstead, 1947; Reitan& Davison, 1974) and the Luria
Nebraska Battery (Golden, Hammeke, & Purisch, 1980) are the most commonly used test batteries
with adults.

The Halstead Reitan Battery can be administered to persons aged 15through adulthood and consists
of 12 separate tests along with the administration of the MMPI-2 and the WAIS-III. The battery takes
approximately 6 to 8 hours to administer and provides an overall impairment index as well as
separate scores on each subtest assessing skill such as memory, sensory-perceptual skills, and the
ability to solve new learning problems. Other versions of the test are available for children between
ages 5 and 14.

The Luria Nebraska Battery consists of 11 subtests for a total of 269 separate testing tasks. The
subtests assess reading, writing, receptive and expressive speech, memory, arithmetic, and other
skills. The Luria Nebraska battery takes about 2.5 hours to administer.

OVERVIEW

Another neuropsychological testing approach is represented by the Boston Process Approach (Delis,
Kaplan, & Kramer, 2001; Goodglass, 1986; E. Kaplan et al.,1991; Milberg, Hebben, & Kaplan, 1986).
The Boston process approach uses a variety of different tests depending upon the nature of the
referral question.

Rather than using a standard test battery, the Boston Process Approach uses a subset of a wide
variety of tests in order to answer specific neuropsychological questions. Performance on one test
determines which tests or subtests, if any, will be used next. The testing process could be short or
long involving few or many

tests and subtests depending upon what is needed to adequately evaluate strengths and weaknesses
in functioning.

Some of the commonly used individual neuropsychological tests include the Wechsler Memory Scale-
Ill (Wechsler, 1997), the Benton Visual Retention Test (Benton, 1991), the WAIS-R as a
Neuropsychological Instrument(E. Kaplan et al., 1991), the WISC-IIl as a Process Instrument (E.
Kaplan et al., 1999),the Kaufman Short Neuropsychological Assessment Procedure (K-SNAP; Kaufman
& Kaufman, 1994), the California Verbal Learning Test (Delis, Kramer, Kaplan, &Ober,1987, 2000) and
the California Verbal Learning Test Children's Version (Delis, Kramer, Kaplan, & Ober, 1994), and the
Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (Grant & Berg, 1993).

The Delis Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS; Delis, Kaplan, & Kramer,(2001) provides a
comprehensive evaluation of executive functioning or high level thinking and processing as well as
cognitive flexibility. It can be administered to both children and adults from ages 8 through 89. It
assesses the integrity of the frontal lobe area of the brain, and examines potential deficits in abstract
and creative thinking. The D-KEFS consists of9 subtests including the Sorting, Trail Making, Verbal
Fluency, Design Fluency, Color-Word Interference, Tower, 20 Questions, Word Context, and the
Proverb tests. These tests measure various aspects of cognitive functioning that reflect strengths and
weaknesses associated with brain behaviour relationships.

LIMITATIONS

Neuropsychological tests in general have a number of limitations. Prigatano and

Redner (1993) identify four major ones:

• Not all changes associated with brain injury are reflected in changed test performance;

• Test findings do not automatically indicate the reason for the specific performance,

• Neuropsychological test batteries are long to administer and therefore expensive; and

• A patient's performance is influenced not just by brain dysfunction but also by a variety of other
variables such as age and education.

UNIT 2 : PRINCIPLES OF MEASUREMENT AND PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES, CURRENT STATUS WITH

SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE RORSCHACH TEST

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES

Projective techniques, taken as a whole, tend to have the following distinguishingcharacteristics

(Rotter, 1954):

1) In response to an unstructured or ambiguous stimulus, examinees are forced to impose their own
structure and, in so doing, reveal something of themselves (such as needs, wishes, or conflicts).

2) The stimulus material is unstructured. This is a very tenuous criterion, even though it is widely
assumed to reflect the essence of projective techniques. For example, if 70% of all examinees
perceive Card V on the Rorschach as a bat, then we can hardly say that the stimulus is unstructured.
Thus, whether a test is projective or not depends on the kinds of responses that the individual. is
encouraged to give and on how those responses are used

3) The method is indirect. To some degree or other, examinees are not aware of the purposes of the
test; at least, the purposes are disguised. Although patients may know that the test has something to
do with adjustment/maladjustment, they are not usually aware in detail of the significance of their
responses. There is no attempt to ask patients directly about their needs or troubles; the route is
indirect, and the hope is that this very indirectness will make it more difficult for patients to censor
the data they provide.

4) There is freedom of response. Whereas questionnaire methods may allow only for a "yes" or a
"no", response, projective techniques permit a nearly infinite range of responses.

5) Response interpretation deals with more variables. Since the range of possible responses is so
broad, the clinician can make interpretations along multiple dimensions (needs, adjustment,
diagnostic category, ego defenses, and so on). Many objective tests, in contrast, provide but a single
score (such as degree of psychological distress), or scores on a fixed number of dimensions or scales.

CLINICAL USEFULNESS

MacFarlane and Tuddenham (1951) provided five basic answers to this question:
1) A social responsibility

Projective tests are misused, and we need to know which types of statements can be supported by
the scientific literature and which cannot.

2) A professional responsibility

Errors of interpretation can be reduced and interpretive skills sharpened by having objective validity
data.

3) A teaching responsibility

If we cannot communicate the basis for making specific inferences, such as "this type of response to
card 6 on the Rorschach typically means that ... ," then we cannot train future clinicians in these
techniques.

4) Advancement of knowledge

Validity data can advance our understanding of personality functioning, psychopathology, etc.

5) A challenge to research skills.

As scientists, we ought to be able to make explicit what clinicians use intuitively and implicitly.

MEASUREMENT AND STANDARDIZATION (Spl Ref RIBT)

The contrasts between objective tests and projective tests are striking. The former, by their very
nature, lend themselves to an actuarial interpretive approach. Norms, reliability, and even validity
seem easier to manage. The projective tests, by their very nature, seem to resist psychometric
evaluation.

Academic clinical psychologists tend to be highly critical of the Rorschach and the acrimonious
debate over its legitimacy and merits rages on. Projective techniques, as methods of assessing
Psychodiagnostics and describing personality, are alive and well, and do not seem to have been
relegated to second place in favour of the so-called objective assessment methods.

They continue to be preferred and used by a large number of psychologists in both the former and
the new fields of psychological assessment.

UNIT 3 : THE THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST AND CHILDREN’S APPERCEPTION TEST

THE THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST

A thematic apperception test (TAT) is a projective psychological analysis used to investigate a

person's unconscious self. More specifically, a thematic apperception .test can uncover a person's
true personality, their capacity for emotional control, and their attitudes towards aspects they
encounter in everyday life (wealth, power, gender roles, racial and religious attitudes, intimacy, etc.).
In this way, a thematic apperception test is similar to a Rorschach (ink blot) test. Both are projective
tests that assess the types of information that a: subject projects onto a set of ambiguous images.

Procedurally, a thematic apperception test involves showing the subject several pictures (which are
engaging but broad and open to interpretation) and having the subject tell a story for each picture.
The subject is encouraged to use as much detail as possible. For example: What is happening in the
picture? What events occurred prior to what is happening in the picture? What will happen
afterwards? Why are the characters acting and feeling the way they are?
HISTORY OF TAT AND ITS COMPARISON WITH RIBT

The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) was introduced in 1935 by Christina Morgan and Henry
Murray of Harvard University. It is comparable to the Rorschach Test in many ways, including its
importance and psychometric problems. As with the Rorschach Test, use of the TAT grew rapidly after
its introduction. With the exception of the Rorschach Test, the TAT is used more than any other
projective test (Wood et al., 2003). Though its psychometric adequacy was (and still is) vigorously
debated, unlike the Rorschach, the TAT has been relatively well received by the scientific community.

Also, the TAT is based on Murray's (1938) theory of needs, whereas the Rorschach is basically a
theoretical. The TAT and the Rorschach differ in other respects as well. The TAT authors were
conservative in their evaluation of the TAT and scientific in their outlook. The TAT was not oversold as
was the Rorschach, and no extravagant claims were made. Unlike the Rorschach, the TAT was not
billed as a diagnostic instrument, that is, a test of disordered emotional states. Instead, the TAT was
presented as an instrument for evaluating human personality characteristics. This test also differs
from the Rorschach Test because the TAT’s non clinical uses are just as important as its clinical ones.

The TAT is more structured and less ambiguous than the Rorschach Test. TAT stimuli consist of
pictures that depict a variety of scenes. There are 30 pictures and one blank card. Specific cards are
designed for male subjects, others for female. Some of the cards are appropriate for older people,
others for young ones.

A few of the cards are appropriate for all subjects, such as Card 1. This card shows a boy, neatly
dressed and groomed, sitting at a table on which lies a violin. In his description of Card 1, Murray
stated that the boy is "contemplating" the violin. According to experts such as Bellak (1986), Card 1
of the TAT tends to reveal a person's relationship toward parental figures.

Other TAT cards tend to elicit other kinds of information. Card 4 is a picture of a woman "clutching
the shoulders of a man whose face and body are averted as if he were trying to pull away from her"
(Bellak, 1975, p. 51). This card elicits information concerning male female relationships. Bellak (1986,
1996) and others provide a description of the TAT cards along with the information that each card
tends to elicit. This knowledge is essential in TAT interpretation. Card l2F, sometimes elicits conflicting
emotions about the self. Other feelings may also be elicited.

ADMINISTRATION

Although theoretically the TAT could be used with children, it is typically used

with adolescents and adults. The original manual (H. A. Murray, 1943) does have

standardized instructions; but typically examiners use their own versions. What is

necessary is that the instructions include the points that:

• the client is to make up an imaginative or dramatic story;

• . the story is to include what is happening, what led to what is happening, and what will happen;

• Finally, it should include what the story characters are feeling and thinking.

As part of the administration, the examiner unobtrusively records the response latency of each card,
i.e., how long it takes the subject to begin a story. The examiner writes down the story as accurately
as possible, noting any other responses (such as nervous laughter, facial expressions, etc.). Some
examiners use a tape recorder, but such a device may significantly alter the test situation (R. M. Ryan,
1987). The examiner also records the reaction time that is the time interval between the initial
presentation of a card and the subject's first response. By recording reaction time, the examiner can
determine whether the subject has difficulty with a particular card. Because each card is designed to
elicit its own themes, needs, and conflicts, an abnormally long reaction time may indicate a specific
problem. If, for example, the reaction time substantially increases for all cards involving heterosexual
relationships, then the examiner may hypothesize that the subject is experiencing difficulty in this
area.

Often, after all the stories have been elicited, there is an inquiry phase, where the examiner may
attempt to obtain additional information about the stories the client has given. A variety of
techniques are used by different examiners, including asking the client to identify the least preferred
and most preferred cards.

Scoring

H. A. Murray (1938) developed the TAT in the context of a personality theory that saw behaviour as
the result of psychobiological and environmental aspects.

Thus not only are there needs that a person has (both biological needs, such as the need for food,
and psychological, such as the need to achieve or the need for control), but there are also forces in
the environment, called press, that can affect the individual. Presumably, the stories given by the
individual reflect the combination of such needs and presses, both in an objective sense and as
perceived by the person.

Almost all methods of TAT interpretation take into account the hero, needs, press, themes, and
outcomes. The hero is the character in each picture with whom the subject seems to identify. In
most cases, the story revolves around one easily recognisable character. If more than one character
seems to be important, then the character most like the storyteller is selected as the hero. Of
particular importance are the motives and needs of the hero.

Most systems, including Murray's original, consider the intensity, duration, and frequency of each
need to indicate the importance and relevance of that need. In TAT interpretation, press refers to the
environmental forces that interfere with or facilitate satisfaction of the various needs, Again, factors
such as frequency, intensity, and duration are used to judge the relative importance of these factors.
The frequency of various themes (for example, depression) and outcomes (for example, failures) also
indicates their importance.

WHAT DOES TAT MEASURE?

The main aspects measured by TAT are:

1) thought organisation,

2) emotional responsiveness,

3) psychological needs,

4) view of the world,

5) interpersonal relationships,

6) self-concept, and

7) coping patterns.
Holt pointed out that the responses to the TAT not only are potentially reflective of a person's
unconscious functioning, in a manner parallel to dreams, but there are a number of "determinants"
that impact upon the responses obtained. For example, the situational context is very important.

OTHER APPERCEPTION TESTS

Many variants of the TAT approaches have been developed, including sets ~f cards that depict animal
characters for use with children e.g., the Children’s Apperception Test, sets for use with the elderly
the Gerontological Apperception Test, with families and with specific ethnic or cultural groups.

Tell Me A Story Test

This is a multicultural thematic apperception test designed to use with minority and non minority
children and adolescents with a set of stimulus cards and extensive normative data for each group.
The stimulus cards are structured to elicit specific responses and are in colour to facilitate
verbalization and projection of emotional states. It differs from the TAT is the following aspects:

1) It focuses on personality functions as manifested in internalised interpersonal relationships rather

than on intra psychic dynamics.

2) It consists of 23 cards with chromatic pictures while the TAT has 19 achromatic pictures and one
blank card.

3) Tell me a story test attempts to elicit meaningful stories indicating conflict resolution of bipolar
personality functions while the TAT uses ambiguous stimuli to elicit meaningful stories.

4) In The Tell me a story test, stimuli represent the polarities of negative and positive emotions
cognitions and interpersonal functions, while the TAT is primarily weighted to represent negative
emotions, depressive mood and hostility.

5) The Tell Me a Story test stimulus cards are culturally relevant, gender sensitive and have
diminished ambiguity.

THE GERENTOLOGICAL APPERCEPTION TEST

The Gerontological Apperception Test uses stimuli in which one or more elderly individuals are
involved in a scene with a theme relevant to the concerns of the elderly, such as loneliness and
family conflicts (Wolk & Wolk, 1971). The Senior Apperception Technique is an alternative to the
Gerontological Apperception Test and is parallel in content (Bellak, 1975; Bellak & Bellak, 1973).

This test measures the experience es of the older persons. The scoring criteria, was developed to
reflect the interpersonal, health related and intrapsychic dimensions of the experience of later life.
There are a total of 20 items. Stories based on the pictures were written down verbatim. The stories
received a score of 0 for tolerance and 1 for lack of tolerance. The sample items for the elderly
included the following:

• Tolerates loneliness/separateness

• Concern for affiliation with others

• Fear of losing one's place/status in the community

• Concern for heterosexuality-sexual need

• Concern for heterosexuality-companionship/ sociability

The Children's Apperception Test (The CAT)

The Children's Apperception Test, often abbreviated as CAT, is an individually administered projective
personality test appropriate for children aged three to 10 years.

The CAT is intended to measure the personality traits, attitudes, and psychodynamic processes
evident in pre pubertal children. By presenting a series of pictures and asking a child to describe the
situations and make up stories about the people or animals in the pictures, an examiner can elicit
this information about the child.

The CAT was originally developed to assess psychosexual conflicts related to certain stages of a
child's development. Examples of these conflicts include relationship issues, sibling rivalry, and
aggression. Today, the CAT is more often used as an assessment technique in clinical evaluation.
Clinical diagnoses can be based in part on the Children's Apperception Test and other projective
techniques.

The Children's Apperception Test was developed by Leopold Bellak and Sonya Sorel Bellak. It was an
offshoot of the Thematic Apperception Test(TAT), which was based on Henry Murray's need-based
theory of personality. Bellak and Bellak developed the CAT because they saw a need for an
apperception test specifically designed for children. The most recent revision of the CAT was
published in 1996.

UNIT 4 PERSONALITY INVENTORIES

OBJECTIVE MEASURES OF PERSONALITY

Many tests exist to measure personality and psychological functioning such as mood. Most of these
tests can be classified as either objective or projective instruments. Objective instruments present
very specific questions or statements to which the person responds to using specific answers. Scores
are tabulated and then compared with those of reference groups, using national norms. The most
commonly used objective personality tests include the Minnesota Multi Phasic Personality Inventory
(MMPI, MMPI-2, MMPI-A), the Millon Clinical Inventories (MCMI-III, MCMI-II, MACI, MAPI,MBHI) and
the 16 Personality Factors Questionnaire (16PF).

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI, MMPI-2, MMPIA)

The original MMPI was developed during the late 1930s and published in 1943 by psychologist Starke
Hathaway and psychiatrist 1. C. McKinley. The MMPI was revised and became available as the MMPI-
2 in 1989. The original MMPI consisted of 550 true / false items. The items were selected from a
series of other personality tests and from the developers' clinical experience in an effort to provide

psychiatric diagnoses for mental patients. The original pool of about 1000 test items were considered
and about 500 items were administered to psychiatric patients and visitors at the University of
Minnesota hospitals. The MMPI was designed to be used with individuals ages 16 through
adulthood. However, the test has been frequently used with adolescents younger than 16. The MMPI
takes about one to-one-and-a-half hours to complete.

Scoring the MMPI results in four validity measures and ten clinical measures. The validity measures
include the? (Cannot Say), L(Lie), F (Validity), and K / (Correction) scales. Admitting to many problems
or "faking bad" is reflected in an inverted V configuration with low scores on the Land K scales and a
high score on the F scale. Presenting oneself in a favorable light or "faking good" is reflected in a V
configuration with high scores on the Land K scales and a low score on the F scale. The clinical scales
include Hypochondriasis (Hs), Depression (D), Conversion Hysteria (Hy), Psychopathic deviate (Pd),
Masculinity/femininity (Mt), Paranoia (Pa), Psychasthenia (Pt), Schizophrenia (Sc), Hypomania (Ma),
and Social Introversion (Si). Scores are normed using standardized T-scores, meaning that each scale
has a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10. Scores above 65 (representing one and one half
standard deviations above the mean) are considered elevated, and in the clinical range. While 65 is
the cut off score on the MMPI-2 and MMPI-A, 70 is used with the original MMPI. Since the MMPI
was originally published, a number of additional subscales have been developed, including measures
such as Repression, Anxiety, Ego Strength,· Over controlled Hostility, and Dominance. It has been
estimated that there are over 400 subtests of the MMPI (Dahlstrom, Welsh, & Dahlstrom, 1975). The
MMPI has been used in well over lO,OOO studies.

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory- Adolescent (MMPI-A) (Butcher,et al., 1992)

This was developed for use with teens between the ages of 14 and 18. The MMPI-A has 478 true /
false items and includes a number of validity measures in addition to those-available in the MMPI
and MMPI-2. The MMPI, MMPI- 2, and MMPI-A can be scored by hand using templates for each
scale or they can be computer scored. Most commercially available computer scoring programs offer
in depth interpretive reports that fully describe the testing results and offer , suggestions for
treatment Of other interventions. Scores are typically interpreted by reviewing the entire resulting
profile rather than individual scale scores. Profile analysis is highlighted by examining pairs of high
scores combinations. For example, high scores on the first three scales of the MMPI are referred to
as the neurotic triad reflecting anxiety, depression, and somatic. complaints. Research indicates that
the MMPI, MMPI-2, and MMPI-A have acceptable reliability, stability; and validity(Butcher et al.,
1989; Butcher et al., 1992;Qraham, 1990; Parker et al., 1988). /' .

However, controversy exits concerning many aspects of the test. For example, the Mac Andrew ,Scale
was designed as a supplementary scale to classify those, people with alcohol related problems. The
validity of the scale has been criticized and some authors have suggested that the scale no longer be
used to examine alcohol problems (Gottesman & Prescott, 1989).

The Sixteen' Personality Factors (16PF)

The 16PF was developed by Raymond Cattell and colleagues and is currently in its fifth edition
(Cattell, Cattell, &Cattell,1993).1t is a 185 item multiple-choice questionnaire that takes
approximately 45 minutes to complete. The 16 PF is administered to individuals aged 16 years
through adulthood. Scoring the 16PF results in 16 primary personality traits (e.g., apprehension
prone) and five global factors that' assess second order personality characteristics (e.g., anxiety).

Standardized scores from 1 to 10 or sten scores are used with means set at 5 and a standard
deviation of 2. The 16 PF has been found to have acceptable stability, reliability, and validity (Anastasi
& Urbina,1996; Cattell et al., 1993).

The Neo-Personality Inventory Revised

The NEO-PI.,R(Costa & McCrae, 1985, 1989, 1992) is a 240 item questionnaire that uses a 5-
pointrating system. A brief 60-item version of the NEO-PI-R called the NEO.Five Factor Inventory
(NEO-FF) is also available as well as an observer rating version (Form R). The NEO-PI-R measures the
big five personality dimensions: neuroticism, extroversion, openness, agreeableness, and
conscientiousness. The big five or the five factor model has been found to be consistent personality
dimensions from factor analytic research conducted for over 40 years and across many cultures
(Digman, 1990; McCrae & Costa,2003). The NEO-PI waits are referred to as the big five because in
many research studies they have been found to account for a great deal of variability in, personality
test scores (McCrae & Costa, 2003; Wiggins & Pincus, 1989). The NEO-PI-Rhas been found to be both
reliable and valid (Costa & McGrae, 1992). Unlike the other objective tests mentioned, the NEO-PI-R
does not include validity scales to assess subject response set. '

The Edwards Personal Preference –Schedule 'EPPS’)

There are two theoretical influences that resulted in the creation of the EPPS. The first is the theory
proposed by Henry Murray(1938) which among other aspects, catalogued a set of needs as primary
dimensions of behaviour for example, needachievement, need affiliation, need heterosexuality. A
second theoretical focus is the issue of social desirability. A. L. Edwards (1957) argued that a person's
“…” response to a typical personality inventory item may be more reflective of how desirable that
response is than the actual behaviour of the person. Thus a true ' response to the item, "I am loyal to
my friends “may be given not because the person is loyal.' but because the person perceives that
saying "true" is socially, desirable.

The California Psychological Inventory (CPI)

The CPI is considered an important instrument by clinicians, and indeed it is. Surveys done with
professional groups place the CPI in a very high rank of usefulness, typically second after the MMPI.

The CPI, first published in 1956 and developed by Harrison Gough, originally contained 480 true false
items and 18 personality scales. It was revised in 1987 to 462 items with 20 scales. Another revision
that contains 434 items was completed in 1995. Items that were out of date or medically related
were eliminated. But the same 20 scales were retained. The 20 scales (for example Dominance,
Capacity, Sociability, Responsibility, Socialisation etc.) are arranged in four groups; these groupings
are the result of logical analyses and are intended to aid in the interpretation of the profile, although
the groupings are also supported by the results of factor analyses.