Final Examination in Projective Techniques: Submitted To: Connie C. Magsino Professor

FINAL EXAMINATION IN PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES
Submitted to:
Connie C. Magsino
Professor
Submitted by:
Christine Joy G. Aquino
MaEd-Educational Management
1. Explain the origin and rationale of projective techniques.
It is a personality evaluation to draw out significant information related to one’s unconscious mind and
its working. In such a test, the individual responds to some vague stimuli, such as pictures, words and
the like. Projective assessments are designed to be open-ended and to encourage free expression of
thoughts and feelings, thereby revealing how an individual thinks and feels. The response so obtained
is analyzed by expert to reveal hidden emotions and internal conflicts. It’s quite different from an
"objective test", where the responses are analyzed as per a common standard (for example, a multiple
choice exam). The responses are content-analyzed for deeper meanings and interpretations.
These tests originate from psychoanalysis which argues that human behavior is greatly shaped by
unconscious attitudes and motivations which are hidden from consciousness.
Projective techniques and their application represent a point of significant intersection for
psychoanalytic theory, clinical psychology, social psychology, and cultural anthropology. These
instruments include a wide array of materials, instructions, and interpretative rules, but in spite of this
diversity, there are certain common qualities that distinguish them from other personality measures,
such as inventories, ratings, or situational tests.
The most distinctive feature of projective techniques concerns the presentation to the subject of a task
that is relatively unstructured. This lack of structure involves ambiguous or vaguely defined stimuli and
a relatively unrestricted set of response alternatives by means of which the subject may assign
meaning to the stimulus material. It is generally assumed that in the process of choosing between the
many alternatives for structuring or interpreting the ambiguous stimulus material, the subject reveals
significant and fundamental aspects of himself. Ordinarily such devices are considered to be particularly
responsive to latent or unconscious components of the person, and consistently there is a minimum of
subject awareness concerning the purpose of the test. The response data are typically profuse and
often involve fantasy or imaginary creations. The instruments are highly multidimensional; that is, they
are intended to provide information concerning a large number of personality dimensions.
Projective techniques and their application represent a point of significant intersection for
psychoanalytic theory, clinical psychology, social psychology, and cultural anthropology. These
instruments include a wide array of materials, instructions, and interpretative rules, but in spite of this
diversity, there are certain common qualities that distinguish them from other personality measures,
such as inventories, ratings, or situational tests.
The most distinctive feature of projective techniques concerns the presentation to the subject of a task
that is relatively unstructured. This lack of structure involves ambiguous or vaguely defined stimuli and
a relatively unrestricted set of response alternatives by means of which the subject may assign
meaning to the stimulus material. It is generally assumed that in the process of choosing between the
many alternatives for structuring or interpreting the ambiguous stimulus material, the subject reveals
significant and fundamental aspects of himself. Ordinarily such devices are considered to be particularly
responsive to latent or unconscious components of the person, and consistently there is a minimum of
subject awareness concerning the purpose of the test. The response data are typically profuse and
often involve fantasy or imaginary creations. The instruments are highly multidimensional; that is, they
are intended to provide information concerning a large number of personality dimensions.
2. Describe and identify particular applications of the following projective techniques:
2.1 Completion Techniques

2.2
Completion techniques present some type of incomplete product, with the requirement that the
subject complete it in any manner he wishes and the restriction that the completions meet certain
standards of good form or rationality. Best known of these devices are the sentence-completion
tests (e.g., Rotter & Wilierman 1947), which are widely used by both clinicians and personality
investigators. Typically such a device consists of thirty to one hundred brief sentence stems which
the subject is instructed to complete with the first words that come to mind. In some cases the
instructions to the subject emphasize that the completions should reveal his own feelings. The type
of scoring employed and the customary inferences derived from this technique suggest its close
kinship with the TAT. The technique is considered most efficient in assessing the content of
personality (attitudes, motives, and conflicts) at a more conscious or manifest level than such
instruments as the Rorschach or TAT. Other examples of completion tests are story-completion
and argument-completion tests and the Rosenzweig Picture-Frustration Study (Rosenzweig 1949).
2.3 Expressive Techniques

Expressive methods differ from construction techniques in that they place as much emphasis upon
the manner and style in which the product is created as upon the product itself. They are often
considered to be therapeutic as well as diagnostic devices, since the subject is presumed to relieve
his difficulties in the process of revealing them.
Play. Most popular among the expressive instruments are play techniques. Originating in play
therapy, these methods have been adapted for the diagnosis and measurement of personality,
primarily in children. All the approaches present the subject with an array of toys which he is
encouraged to use in some manner. Among the objects frequently selected are dolls representing
adults and children of both sexes and various age levels. Typically the examiner is responsible for
recording as much of the subject’s behavior as possible, including his choice and arrangement of
toys, accompanying comments, and expressive behavior. Except for the work carried out by Sears
and his associates, which has focused on measures of aggression and dependency (Sears et al.
1953), little has been done with this technique in the way of standardization and specification of just
how the process of interpretation shall take place. In most instances it is assumed that the
examiner will recognize important motives and conflicts when he sees them.
Drawing and painting. There is also a variety of drawing and painting techniques that have been
used in personality assessment. Attention has centered chiefly on procedures using drawings of the
human figure, the most publicized of which have been those of Buck (1948) and Machover (1949).
When the test is administered individually, the examiner usually notes the subject’s comments, the
sequence of parts drawn, and other procedural details. Scoring of human-figure-drawing tests is
essentially qualitative, being concerned with such stylistic features as the figure’s stance, size, and
position on the page, disproportions, shading, and erasures. Interpretation of both drawing and
painting techniques is far from precise, in some cases depending largely upon general clinical
wisdom, coupled with knowledge of some specific rules or generalizations relating certain features
of the drawing or painting to personality characteristics.
2.4 Association Techniques
Association Technique
-the subjects are presented with a stimulus and they respond by indicating the first word, image or
thought elicited by the stimulus
- in which a particular stimulus is used to elicit the first thing that occurs in the subject’s mind
- the subject must verbally associate or complete words, phrases or stories according to certain
instructions.
-under association techniques are those instruments that tend to minimize ideation and emphasize
immediacy of response
-the subject is instructed not to reflect but rather to respond to the stimulus with the first word, image, or
perception that occurs to him.
TYPES OF ASSOCIATION TECHNIQUES
A. Word Association Test
B. Rorschach Inkblot Test
C. Holtzman Inkblot Test
D. Hand Test
E. Association Adjustment Inventory
A. Word Association Test
-involves the oral presentation of a series of disconnected words, one at a time, to which the subject is
instructed to respond with the first word that occurs to him
-both the subject’s association and reaction time to each word are recorded
B. Rorschach Inkblot Test

-typically the cards are presented individually and in a set order, with instructions to the subject that he report
what the figures resemble or suggest to him.
C. Holtzman Inkblot Test
-is a projective personality assessment test for person’s ages five and up.
-is used to assess the personality structure of a test subject
-it is sometimes used as a diagnostic tool in assessing schizophrenia, depression, addiction, and character
disorders
D. Hand Test
-consisting of ten cards upon which pictures of hands are drawn
-the subject is asked to tell what the hand looks like it is doing and the scored responses derive the extent of
interpersonal, environmental, maladjustive and withdrawal tendencies.
E. ASSOCIATION ADJUSTMENT INVENTORY

-introduced by Bruce during 1959
-test for adults
-it is a forced-choice, multiple-choice word association task
-is a screening instrument for maladjustment and immaturity and as an aid in the diagnosis of deviate ideation
along dimensions of psychosis, depression, hysteria, withdrawal, paranoia, rigidity, and schizophrenia.
2.5 Construction Methods
Construction techniques require the subject to go beyond simple association to a stimulus and to create
or construct a more elaborate product, which is typically a complete art form, such as a story or picture.
Thematic Apperception Test. Next to the Rorschach, the most widely used of all projective techniques
is the Thematic Apperception Test (Murray 1943). The TAT consists of cards containing black-and-
white pictures of vague scenes, and the instructions request the subject to compose a story to fit each
picture, describing what the people are thinking and feeling, what led up to the scene depicted, and
what the outcome will be. Analysis of TAT stories, which are usually recorded verbatim, is far from
standardized, although a number of general scoring systems have been proposed (e.g., Aron 1949;
Bellak 1947; Stein 1948; Tomkins 1947). Most of these systems focus on the content of behavior and
experiences described in the story, although they differ considerably in the unit of analysis employed
and the degree of inference required. As used clinically, interpretation typically has not rested upon a
set of objective scores for specific variables. The basic assumption of most schemes is one of a
psychological isomorphy between dispositions attributed to the part of the major character in the story
and those that exist in the storyteller.
The Blacky Pictures. Closely related to the TAT is the Blacky Pictures test (Blum 1949), which is
intended to investigate 11 specific psychoanalytic variables, including oral eroticism, oedipal intensity,
and castration anxiety. The test consists of 12 cartoons concerned with experiences in the life of a dog
named Blacky, including his relationships with Mama, Papa, and Tippy, a sibling. As its central feature
the procedure involves story construction in response to the pictures but adds indications of preference
and a series of direct questions for each picture. While administration is highly standardized, scoring
and interpretation are not.
2.6 Choice/Ordering Techniques

-in which the subject is required to choose from a group, or to order a group (of pictures, sentences,
etc.).
-the subjects have to explain why certain things are “most important” or “least important”, or to "rank" or
“order” or “categorize” certain factors associated with a product, brand or service

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FINAL EXAMINATION IN PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES

2. Describe and identify particular applications of the following projective techniques:

2.1 Completion Techniques

2.3 Expressive Techniques

B. Rorschach Inkblot Test

E. ASSOCIATION ADJUSTMENT INVENTORY

2.6 Choice/Ordering Techniques

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