They recommend that practitioners refrain from administering the tests for purposes other than research ''or at least limit their interpretations to the very small number of indexes derived from these techniques that are empirically supported.''ĭr. The tests, which often take hours to score and interpret, add little information beyond what can be gleaned from far less time-consuming assessments, the psychologists say. While the Rorschach and the other projective techniques may be valuable in certain specific situations, the reviewers argue, the tests' ability to diagnose mental illnesses, assess personality characteristics, predict behavior or uncover sexual abuse or other trauma is very limited. The figure-drawing test requires drawing a person on a blank sheet of paper and then drawing a second person of the opposite sex.
#INKBLOT QUIZ SERIES#
In the T.A.T., test takers are shown a series of evocative pictures depicting domestic scenes and are asked to tell a story about each one. The test taker's responses are assumed to reflect underlying personality traits and unconscious conflicts, motives and fantasies. The three tests are known as ''projective'' because they present people with an ambiguous image or situation and ask them to interpret or make sense of it. Howard Garb of the University of Pittsburgh, appears in the current issue of the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a publication of the American Psychological Society. Wood of the University of Texas at El Paso and Dr. ''The research continues to suggest that they are not as useful for most purposes as many clinicians believe.'' Lilienfeld, an associate professor of psychology at Emory University and the lead author of the article. ''There has been a substantial gap between the clinical use of these tests and what the research suggests about their validity,'' said Dr. and the Draw-a-Person test - are seriously flawed and should not be used in court or the consulting room. In the article, three psychologists conclude that the inkblot test and two others commonly used - the Thematic Apperception Test or T.A.T. The debate is likely to become even more heated with the publication of an article provoking discussion and anger among clinicians who routinely use the Rorschach.
Yet almost since its creation, the inkblot test has also been controversial, with early critics calling it ''cultish'' and later ones deeming it ''scientifically useless.''Īnd in recent years, academic psychology departments have been divided over the merits of the test, and some have stopped teaching it. Clinicians use it in investigating accusations of sexual abuse, and psychotherapists, as a guide in diagnosing and treating patients. Judges and parole boards rely on it for insight into a prisoner's criminal tendencies or potential for violence. In custody disputes, for example, the test is used to help determine the emotional fitness of warring parents. And beyond its pop culture status, it has retained a central role in personality assessment, administered several hundred thousand times a year, by conservative estimates, to both children and adults. Psychology has produced few more popular icons than the Rorschach inkblot test.ĭevised 80 years ago by a young Swiss psychiatrist, the Rorschach has entered the language as a synonym for anything ambiguous enough to invite multiple interpretations.
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