Research Methods I - Projective Tests & IQ Measurement

Projective tests aim to reveal an individual's psychological characteristics by interpreting their responses to ambiguous stimuli.
The interpretation of these stimuli, such as inkblots or vague stories, is believed to reflect the individual's personality components.
The individual projects aspects of themselves when interpreting the ambiguous stimuli.
Examples include the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) and the Rorschach test.

Developed by H. Murray and C. Morgan at the Harvard Psychological Clinic, published in 1938.
Aims to reveal dominant drives, emotions, sentiments, complexes, and conflicts of personality. It is especially useful for exposing underlying inhibited tendencies.
Popularity: By 1971, over 1800 articles and several books were written based on the TAT.
Usage: Was the 6th most commonly used test by clinical psychologists (Camera et al., 2000).
Consists of 20 cards each with ambiguous stimuli for 4 groups (males, females, boys, girls).
Focus is on the interaction between individuals and their environment.

The examinee interprets the picture and creates a plausible story that includes:
- What occurs in the picture.
- Thoughts/feelings of the depicted characters.
- Events leading up to the situation.
- Outcome (what happens after the depicted event).

Can reveal conflicts between personal wishes and external demands.
May show whether parents are supportive or dominant.
The TAT can be valuable because it:
- Reveals the examinee's inner drives.
- Elicits information that might not be easily communicated otherwise.
- Makes internal states (ego-distant) easier to access by interpreting a picture, thereby projecting their inner drives of behavior.

General aspects procedure include:
- Time between stimulus and start of story-telling.
- Complete recording of the response.
- Questioning/inquiry.
- Presentation sequence.
Exact administration is variable (Gieser & Stein, 1999).
- Number of cards presented.
- Sequence of presentation.
- Types of cards provided.

Normative standards are lacking.
Scores are frequently interpreted based on intuition and clinical experience.
Standardized scoring system developed by D. Weston (1995), but not widely implemented.

Rorschach test published in 1921 in Psychodiagnostik (1921/1941).
Goal: to assess characteristic responses in specific populations to differentiate between them.
Later used to assess personality components.

Administration should be standardized:
- Introduction to the technique to reduce anxiety.
- Providing the test instruction.
- The response phase.
- Inquiry.

IQ stands for Intelligence Quotient.
Tools used to measure IQ include:
- WAIS (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale).
- WISC (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children).

Verbal Comprehension
Perceptual Reasoning
- Visual reasoning and visuospatial integration performance, visuomotor performance, etc.
Working Memory
Processing Speed

Standard deviations from the mean (0) are shown with corresponding percentages of cases under the curve.
Cumulative percentages are also provided.
Percentile equivalents are given, along with corresponding Stanford-Binet and Wechsler IQs.
Wechsler subtest scores, z scores, T scores, stanines, and percent in stanine are also displayed on the normal distribution curve.