These procedures yield three sources of data.

First, the manner in which people structure their responses

identifi es how they are likely to structure other situations in their lives. People who base most of their responses
on the overall appearance of the inkblots and pay little attention to separate parts of them are likely to be
individuals who tend to form global impressions of situations and ignore or overlook details of these situations.
Conversely, people who base most of their responses on parts of the blots and seldom make use of an entire blot
are often people who become preoccupied with the details of situations and fail to grasp their overall
significance, as in “not being able to see the forest for the trees.” As another example of response structure,
people who report seeing objects that are shaped similarly to the part of the blot where they are seeing them are
likely in general to perceive people and events accurately and thus to show adequate reality testing. In contrast,
people who give numerous perceptually inaccurate responses that do not resemble the shapes in the blots are
prone in general to form distorted impressions of what they see and thus to show impaired reality testing.
As a second source of data, Rorschach responses frequently contain content themes that provide clues to a
person’s underlying needs, attitudes, and concerns. People who consistently describe human figures they see in
the inkblots as being angry, carrying weapons, or fighting with each other may harbor concerns that other people
are potentially dangerous to them, or they may view interpersonal relationships as characterized by competition
and strife. Conversely, a thematic emphasis on people described as friendly, as carrying a peace offering, or as
helping each other in a shared endeavor probably reveals a sense of safety in interpersonal relationships and an
expectation that people will interact in collaborative ways. In similar fashion, recurrent descriptions of people,
animals, or objects seen in the blots as being damaged or dysfunctional (e.g., “a decrepit old person”; “a
wounded bug”; “a piece of machinery that’s rusting away”) may reflect personal concerns about being injured
or defective in some way, or about being vulnerable to becoming injured or defective.
The third source of data in a Rorschach examination consists of the manner in which individuals conduct
themselves and relate to the examiner, which provide behavioral indications of how they are likely in general to
deal with task-oriented and interpersonal situations. Some of the behavioral data that emerge during a Rorschach
examination resemble observations that clinicians can make whenever they are conducting interview or test
assessments. Whether people being assessed seem deferential or antagonistic toward the examiner may say
something about their attitudes toward authority. Whether they appear relaxed or nervous may say something
about how self-confident and self-assured they are and about how they generally respond to being evaluated.
Rorschach assessment also provides some test-specific behavioral data in the form of how people handle the
cards and how they frame their responses. Do they carefully hand each card back to the examiner when they are
fi nished responding to it, or do they carelessly toss the card on the desk? Do they give definite responses and
take responsibility for them (as in “This one looks to me like a bat”), or do they disavow responsibility and
avoid commitment (as in “It really doesn’t look like anything to me, but if I have to say something, I’d say it
might look something like a bat”)?
To summarize this instrument, then, the Rorschach involves each of the following three tasks:

1. A perceptual task yielding structural information that helps identify personality states and traits
2. An associational task generating content themes that contain clues to a person’s underlying needs, attitudes,
and concerns
3. A behavioral task that provides a representative sample of an individual’s orientation to problem-solving
and interpersonal situations