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Subject PSYCHOLOGY

Paper No and Title Paper No 5: Personality Theories

Module No and Title Module No 40: Projective Techniques

Module Tag PSY_P5_M40

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Learning Outcomes
2. Introduction to Projective techniques
3. Nature of Projective techniques
4. Types of Projective Techniques
4.1 Association Techniques
4.1.1 Word Associations
4.1.2 Inkblot tests: Rorschach & Holtzman Inkblot techniques
4.2 Construction Techniques
4.2.1 Thematic Apperception Test
4.2.2 Modifications and other Apperception tests
4.3 Completion Techniques
4.3.1 Sentence Completions

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4.3.2 Rosenzweig Picture-Frustration

Study
4.4 Expressive Techniques
4.4.1 Projective Drawings: Draw-A-Person & House-Tree-Person
4.5 Choice /Ordering Techniques
4.5.1 The Szondi Test.
4.5.2 Picture Arrangement Test
5. Evaluation of Projective techniques
5.1 Rapport and Applicability
5.2 Faking
5.3 Examiner and Situational Variables
5.4 Norms
5.5 Reliability
5.6 Validity
6. Applications of Projective techniques
6.1 In Clinical Settings
6.2 In Marketing Research
7. Summary

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1. Learning Outcomes

After studying this module, you shall be able to

 Know about projective techniques as measures of personality assessment

 Learn about various types of projective techniques
 Identify the nature of projective techniques
 Evaluate projective techniques with respect to some unique features.
 Analyze the applications of projective techniques in clinical and marketing fields.

2. Introduction to Projective Techniques

Projective technique is a term coined by Lawrence Frank in 1939. A projective test is a test aimed
to understand the personality of individuals and involves individuals to respond to ambiguous and
ill-defined stimuli, which helps to gauge the person’s internal conflicts and hidden emotions.
Projective tests developed out of the work in psychoanalytic psychology, which espouses that
humans, along with conscious elements, have unconscious attitudes and motivations that are
hidden from conscious awareness, as they are presumed to be too dangerous to be revealed, and
are not in-sync with the societal values. Projective techniques thus are tools or approaches used
for research purposes that are aimed to understand thoughts, feelings, or needs that are not easily
accessible to and carefully hidden from research participants and/or to the person carrying out
research. The technique uses ambiguous stimuli that seek to explore the realm of unconscious. In
a manner, these techniques allow the participants to express their hidden desires and views
through the defense mechanism that was outlined in the works of Sigmund Freud, namely
projection that refers to attributing one’s own views to other people (for example, an aggressive
person might call their friends aggressive). In this manner, ideas that are socially unacceptable
can be expressed openly. Projective techniques provide participants with a forum wherein they
can express emotions and thoughts that cannot be otherwise expressed and displayed in a societal
context due to their intrinsic potential to be disruptive to the individual in question. These tests
are absolutely imperative when the researchers wish to understand the unconscious processes.

The traditional assumption regarding projective techniques has been that the individual’s
responses to the ambiguous stimuli presented to her or him reflect significant and relatively
enduring personality attributes. This is broadly known as the projective hypothesis. Projective
techniques are used as a method for assessment of psychological attributes like personality,
emotions etc and the interpretation of responses to the test materials has been largely influenced
by psychoanalytic theory. Projective tests have their roots in notions such as social motivation
which, further, have resulted in a wealth of research. Franz Gall, Francis Galton, and James

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McKeen Cattell have been major proponents in this

development (Butcher 2010).The decade of 1960’s saw a great increase in the use of such
techniques due to the increase in popularity and influence of the psychoanalytic theories.
However, owing to lack of scientific evidence to back them, projective tests have continued to be
used which has come to be termed as the “projective paradox.”

The stimuli used in the projective techniques are relatively unstructured materials such as
inkblots, and tasks that a person is asked to describe, tell a story, complete or respond to it in
some other manner. The available literature on projective techniques is vast, running to over 6000
references on a single instrument! They are also useful to commercial researchers as they help in
answering a wide range of research questions. After all, projective tests help in concise and clear
understanding of aspects that can not be easily determined with the use of other methods that are
at the disposal of researchers, like interviews, observations, among others.

3. Nature of Projective Techniques

Projective methods originated within a clinical setting and have remained predominantly a tool
for the clinician. Projective tests developed in response to the normative data because in contrast
to the more direct personality inventories and rating scales, projective techniques are usually less
obvious in intent, indirect and ambiguous, and therefore presumably less prone to faking and
response sets. Projective techniques are subjective in nature to the extent that their interpretations
may differ across examiners, which may be a reflection of the theoretical orientation, favourite
hypotheses and personal idiosyncrasies of the examiner. The interpretation of projective
techniques requires the examiner to be highly trained and skilled in order to eliminate subjective
biases as much as possible.

4. Types of Projective Techniques and other methods

4.1 Association Techniques

Various projective techniques have been devised to detect less obvious motives, conflicts,
problems and other covert intrapersonal characteristics. Of these, the word association and inkblot
techniques use stimuli like words and inkblots for the purpose of tapping the unconscious:
motives, feelings, emotions.

4.1.1 Word Associations

Francis Galton (1879) introduced the method of word association which was first applied
clinically by Carl Jung (1910) to detect neurotic conflicts. In this method, a series of words is
read aloud to a person who is required to give response to each word with the word that is a

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prompt response, and not a result of prolonged thought process

(as if on a cue). Clinical applications of this method involve mixing selected emotionally loaded
word or words of special significance to the person within a set of neutral words. In addition to
significant associations and delays in responding, the degree to which certain words are
emotionally arousing, maybe determined by measuring skin conductance, muscle tension,
respiration rate, blood pressure, pulse rate, voice tremor, or other physiological reactions to the
stimulus words.

Many clinical psychologists prefer to construct their own word list, but standardized lists are
available. An example is the Kent-Rosanoff Free Association Test, a standard list of hundred
words and associations to them given by thousand adults. The Kent-Rosanoff, which was
published originally in 1910, is one of the oldest psychological tests in use.

4.1.2 Inkblot tests

In order to make an inkblot card, one must spill

ink on a blank white sheet of paper and fold the
sheet from the centre. The sheet must be left to
dry. Overtime, inkblots have come to be
associated with psychology after their repeated
usage by the researchers as the stimuli in the test.

Fig. 1 Rorschach Inkblot

Rorschach Inkblot Test

A standard Rorschach inkblot is a bilaterally symmetrical card (that is, mirror-imaged if folded in
half). In total there are 10 inkblot card. Five of the inkblot cards are achromatic, that is, without
color, or black-and-white. Two inkblots are black, red and white. The rest of the three inkblots are
multicolored. However, no explanation, as such, has been provided as to why some inkblots are
achromatic, while others are chromatic. An interesting aspect of this test is that it comes without
any test manual or any administration or interpretation instructions for that matter. This is very
much unlike most psychological tests that are properly furnished with the aforementioned
material: test manual, administration or interpretation instructions. This test solely comes in a
cardboard box containing 10 inkblot cards!

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To fill the need for a test manual and instructions for administration, scoring, and
interpretation, a number of manuals and handbooks set forth a variety of methods (such as
Aronow & Reznikoff, 1976, 1983; Beck, 1944, 1945, 1952, 1960; Exner, 1974, 1978, 1986;
Exner & Weiner, 1982; Klopfer & Davidson, 1962; Lerner, 1991, 1996a, 1996b; Piotrowski,
1957). The system most widely used is the “comprehensive system” devised by Exner which is
used for the scoring of the test.
During the test, participants is presented the inkblot cards one by one in a serial order, i.e, from 1
to 10.The researcher instructs the participant to describe the image on the card with the question:
What might this be? Participants are at liberty to inspect the card thoroughly which can also
involve turning the card one way or the other. Once all the cards have been presented, the
researcher moves on to administer the test a second time; this administration is called inquiry.
During the second administration, the test taker/researcher attempts to dig deeper into the
participant’s response by asking questions such as “What made it look like (whatever)?” and
“How do you see (whatever it is that the test taker reported seeing)?” These questions are asked
in an attempt to clarify, one more time, what was seen by the test taker and which aspects of the
inkblot stood out for the participant out of the complete picture, and formed their perception
(Cohen & Swerdlik, 2009).

Holtzman Inkblot technique

The Holtzman Inkblot technique is the response to the subjective and less valid approach of the
Rorschach Inkblot technique. The two parallel forms of the HIT (A & B) consist of 45 blots each,
and the examinee is limited to one response per blot. The hit can be scored on the 22 response
categories developed by computer analysis of hundreds of test protocols. The percentile norms for
these 22 scores are based on 8 groups of people, normal and pathological and, ranging in age
from five years to adulthood. The validity of projective in general for helping to make decisions
about people has not been adequately demonstrated in this test but despite its limitation its is one
of the few instruments in this category that come even close to meeting the psychometric
standards for a good test (Aiken, 1997).

4.2 Construction Techniques

Construction techniques employ the use of pictures or other materials about which the respondent
is asked to construct a story. These tests are less structured than word-associations and
incomplete sentences, but more structured than inkblot techniques.

4.2.1 Thematic Apperception Test

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The original purpose of TAT was to gauge the unconscious

motivations and thoughts of the patients during psychoanalysis (Morgan & Murray, 1935). The
test contains 31 cards. One of the cards is blank, while the rest of the cards have black-and-white
pictures which depict a range of scenes which is aimed to introduce the test taker to a spectrum of
“classical human situations.” (Murray, 1943). Examples of such situations involve a lone
individual, a group of people, or a scenario without people. Moreover, while some pictures
resemble a photograph, others resemble surreal images. The test requires participants to look at
the images one by one and then describe the depicted scene based on their understanding. They
are required to describe the likely preceding events to the scene depicted, the present situation,
and what is likely to happen in the probable future of the scene.

Fig.2 TAT

Participants are not just required to describe the superficial features of the images presented on
the cards, but rather, are supposed to describe the feelings and thought process of individuals
shown. You may be wondering about the purpose of the one blank card. The test takers are
required to imagine a scene on that one blank card and describe it to the researcher.

In the TAT manual, Murray (1943) advised examiners to seek to find out the roots of their
participants’ stories. Here, it must be noted that the noun “apperception” ,that comprises the name
of the test itself, is derived from the verb “apperceive”, which refers to perception in terms of the
past . The story, as told by the participant, can be the outcome of their dream, a personal
experience, an imagined event, a book they read in standard 3rd, an episode from the cartoon
show, Tom and Jerry - in a nutshell, almost anything can be the cause of a particular response.
There are various ways to interpret the responses of individuals on this test. For example,
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Thompson, 1986; Westen et al., 1988. Generally, the examiner

works with the assumption that the aspects of images that the participant relates with, be it the
loneliness, or jewellery worn by the character(protagonist) in the story, can help us understand the
participant in-depth by shedding light on their unconscious concerns, desires, hopes and conflicts.
(Cohen & Swerdlik, 2009)

4.2.2 Modification and Other Apperception Tests

The TAT has been used with a range of ethnic and chronological age groups, and various
modifications have been constructed for black children and older adults. The test modified for the
blacks was published as the Thompson Modification of the TAT. Two other special versions of
the TAT are the Senior Apperception technique, and the Children’s Apperception test (Aiken,
1997).

Some other apperception techniques are Gerontological Appercetion test (Wolk & Wolk, 1971)
which is similar to the Senior Apperception technique. The Michigan Picture test, which is one of
the best picture story tests for older children (8-14 years old) and is known to be better than the
children apperception test with respect to design, reliability, validity and standardization. The
majority of apperception test employ pictures of people or animal as stimuli, but one - the Hand
test is composed of pictures of hands and another - the Auditory Apperception Test which
consists of auditory stimuli. Nearly all apperception tests call for open ended response, but one -
the Iowa Picture Interpretation has a multiple choice format.

4.3 Completion Techniques

4.3.1 Sentence Completions

Sentence completion technique was first introduced by Payne (1928) which involved asking a
person to complete specially prepared incomplete sentences. A variety of sentence fragments or
stems related to possible areas of emotional arousal and conflict can be constructed. The
following stems are illustrated:

My greatest fear______________________________________________________________

The thing that bothers me most is________________________________________________

It’s assumed that the respondents wishes, desires, fears and attitudes are reflected in the way she
or he completes the sentences. Although they are less ambiguous than many other projective
techniques, sentence completions are regarded as one of the most valid of all projective
techniques for diagnostic and research purposes. One of the sentence completion tests is the
Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank which includes 40 sentence fragments on each of the three
forms of the Rotter Blank (high school, college and adult) are scored in three categories: neutral
responses, conflict or unhealthy responses, and positive or healthy responses.

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Some other examples are the Activity Completion technique, the Geriatric Sentence Completion
Form and the Bloom Sentence Completion Survey (Aiken, 1997).

Fig.3 Cartoon of Rosenzweig Study

4.3.2 Rosenzweig Picture-Frustration Study

Another projective device that uses verbal stimuli to tap an individual’s unconscious processes is
the Rosenzweig’s Picture-Frustration study (1978). Each of the three forms (child, adolescent,
adult) of this instrument consists of 24 cartoons; each cartoon depicts an individual in a
frustrating situation. The examinees are asked to indicate, by writing in the balloon over the
frustrated person’s head, averbal response that might have been made by this anonymous person.

Responses are scored according to the direction of aggression and the type of aggression
expresses: extraggression (outwardly), intraggression (inwardly) or imaggression (avoidance or
non expression of aggression).

4.4 Expressive Techniques

These Projective techniques use drawings as a mean of expression of inner feelings, desires, and
perceptions.

4.4.1 Projective Drawings

Projective techniques also employ the use of non verbal materials such as claypaints, building
materials and colored chips. The most widely know of the construction techniques are the Draw-
a-Person test (Machover, 1971) and the House-Tree-Person technique.

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On the Draw-a-Person test, an examinee’s drawings of people

of the same and the opposite sex are interpreted in terms of the placement of various features of
the drawings (sex, quality, position, clothing and so forth). Particular aspects of the drawings are
considered to be indicative of certain personality characteristics or psychopathological conditions.
Large eyelashes on persons in the drawings are said to indicate hysteria, many clothing details
suggest neurosis and dark heavy shading suggests strong aggressive impulses. These
generalization were reportedly based on clinical experience and have psychoanalytic bases but
they have failed to hold up under close scrutiny (Aiken, 1997).

Fig.4 Projective Drawings

The House-Tree-Person test is a projective test that uses freehand drawings of a house, tree and
a person (Buck 1948, 1981). The examinee is given almost complete freedom in sketching the
three objects; separate pencil and crayon drawings are requested. The H-T-P rests upon the three
general assumptions: the drawing of the House is a reflection of the examinee’s life at home and
their intra-familial relationships; the Tree drawing mirrors the ways in which the examinee
perceives and experiences their surrounding environment; and the Person drawing can be used
the examiner’s interpersonal relationships. The House-Tree-Person Test has much the same
lineage as the Draw-A-Person Test. (Gregory, 2006).

4.5 Choice/Ordering Techniques

In choice or ordering techniques, the examinee is required to choose from several options, items
of arrangement at their disposal that are based on some criterion like relevance, attractiveness, or
meaningfulness. For instance, there are multiple-choice versions of the Rorschach (Harrower &
Steiner 1945) and the TAT (Goodstein 1954), in this the subject is supposed to choose one of the
several hypothetical responses, the one which appears most appropriate to them.

4.5.1 Szondi Technique

The best known of the choice/ordering techniques is the Szondi Technique. Hungarian
psychiatrist(1947), Szondi, is credited with the development of the Szondi Test in the late 1930s.
Susan Deri(1949) popularized the test in United States. The test stimuli contains 48 photographs
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of people from eight psychiatric diagnostic categories. The

administration which is quite lengthy and complex elicits from the subject expressions of
preference for the different photographs. The guiding principle of the test is that an individual can
be described using the eight “needsystems” (presumably reflected in the photographs), with the
subject’s selections and rejections indicating the degree of strength or tension in each.

Despite its popularity in clinical circuits during 1950s, the use of this technique has dwindled in
modern days. A recent volume by Szondi, Moser, and Webb (1959) provides a thorough
description of the technique, its administration and rationale. Although, the technique has several
positive aspects ranging from repeated administrations to a very objective scoring system,
empirical evidence to support the technique has not been strong, and has been generally
negative(Borstelmann & Klopfer 1953).

4.5.2 Picture Arrangement Test

Another type of choice or ordering technique is the TomkinsHorn Picture Arrangement Test. The
test material comprises of 25 plates, each of which contains three line drawings that depict the
same figure involved in different but related activities. The respondent is required to determine
the order in which these activities took place, along with short description of what is going on in
the picture. Although, the authors (Tomkins & Miner 1957) have majorly focused on producing
methods to objectively deal with the arrangements selected by the respondent, they have
forwarded ways in which the descriptive statements of the respondents can be incorporated in the
interpretation process to gain valuable insights.

An interesting feature of this test is that it only takes into account those responses whose
occurrence is relatively rare. These rare responses from a respondent provide a basis for
understanding of certain tendencies such as hypochondriasis or withdrawal, and for distinguishing
normal from abnormal subjects. Of all the projective techniques, this test has stood out in terms of
its highly objective scoring system as well as its ability to distinguish between normal and
abnormal individuals. Such normative and objective properties have contributed to the empirical
evidence for this test. However, the data collected are sharply delimited, and it is only recently
that the test has started to be shown as quite useful in clinical settings.

5. Evaluation of Projective Techniques

The projective techniques differ widely among themselves. Some appear more promising than
others because of more favorable empirical findings, sounder theoretical orientation, or both. A
related observation is that the differences between projective techniques and standardized tests
are not large or fundamental as may appear at first sight, not only in their psychometric
properties, but also in the nature of the task presented to the test takers and the ways in which the
results are interpreted. It has been argued convincingly that projective techniques and self-report
inventories differ in degree rather than in kind (Levy, 1963). In this module, projective techniques
have been evaluated on the basis of some unique features: (Aiken, 1997)

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5.1 Rapport and Applicability

Effective means for “breaking the ice”(rapport formation) such as tasks which are intrinsically
interesting and divert the individual’s attention from herself/himself, and thus reducing
embarrassment and defensiveness, are used in most projective techniques during the initial
contacts between clinician and client. Certain projective techniques maybe specially useful with
young children, illiterates and persons with language difficulties or speech defects. These
techniques may also aid individuals in clarifying for themselves some aspects of their own
behavior that they had previously failed to express.

5.2 Faking

Due to their ambiguous and disguised nature, projective tests are less susceptible to faking by the
participants than are self-report inventories. It does not matter that a person has some awareness
of the concepts of psychology and understands the basic nature of a testing tool/instrument
because it is very unlikely that s/he can predict the scores and the likely interpretation of the test
as these processes are very complex and should be, ideally, undertaken by highly skilled
professionals. Moreover, the respondent tends to become absorbed in the task/ questions and
hence is less likely to resort to the customary disguises and restrains in an attempt to portray
oneself in a positive light by responding in a socially desirable manner. This is not to insinuate
that projective tests are free from incidents and attempts of faking responses.

There is considerable experimental evidence that responses to projective tests can in fact be
successfully altered in both “fake good” and a “fake bad” direction, although the latter maybe
easier to accomplish. Such results have been obtained with several projective instruments,
including the Rorschach, the TAT, Rosenzweig Picture-Frustration Study, and Sentence
Completion Test (Albert, Fox & Kahn, 1980; Exner, 1991; Kaplan & Eron, 1965; Meltzoff, 1951;
Netter & Viglione, 1994; Perry & Kinder, 1990; Schwartz, Cohen, & Pavlik, 1964). The skilled
examiner is alert to signs of faking, both in the nature of individual responses and response
patterns and in inconsistencies with other sources of data about the respondent.

5.3 Examiner and Situational Variables

Our discussion so far clearly shows that projective techniques are subject to relatively poor
standardization, scoring and administration. It has been found that small differences in the
verbalization of instructions and in examiner-examinees relationships can change performance of
examinees on these tests. Certain variables that are beyond the examiner’s control like the
physical appearance of the examiner which may be quite intimidating or welcoming to the
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examinees, the tone of examiner’s voice which may be

interpreted by the examinees as rude or encouraging can impact the examinees’ responses, despite
the fact that identical instructions were conveyed to all the examinees. This may impact the
productivity, imaginativeness, defensiveness, and other basic performance features of the
examinee.

Next impediment comes in the form of scoring and interpretation of test results. These tests are
objective only to a certain extent (owing to high levels of subjectivity in responding) beyond
which the authenticity of the results depends on the skills and the clinical experience of the
examiner.

5.4 Norms

Projective techniques are also problematic with regard to normative data which may be
inadequate, completely lacking, or based on vaguely described populations. Due to this, and
because of the absence of concrete objective norms, the clinician is forced to rely on her or his
“general clinical experience” to interpret the performance of an individual on a projective test.
However, such a frame of reference is subject to distortions of memory, the theoretical orientation
of the examiner, their preconceived notions and other idiosyncrasies. Moreover, anyone
clinician’s contacts may have been limited largely to persons who are atypical in education,
socioeconomic level, sex ratio, age distribution or other relevant characteristics.

Also, the clinician’s experience is almost certain to produce a misleading result, since she or he
predominantly deals with disturbed or pathological individuals. The clinician may, in this respect,
lack first-hand familiarity with the characteristics reactions of normal people on the tests. The
Rorschach norms gathered by Exner represent efforts to correct some of the more obvious lacks
in this regard.

Interpretation of projective test performance often involves subgroup norms, of either a

subjective or an objective nature. Such norms lead to faulty interpretations unless the subgroups
were equated in other respects. For instance, if the schizophrenics and normals on whom the
norms were derived differed also in the educational level, the observed disparities between
schizophrenic and normal performance may have resulted from educational inequality rather than
from schizophrenia. (Anastasi & Ubrina, 2007)

5.5 Reliability

In the context of the special nature of projective techniques, scorer reliability becomes an
important consideration. A proper measure of scoring reliability of the projective techniques does
not only involve a more objective preliminary scoring, but also the final integrative and
interpretative stages. In case of Rorschach tests, due to the lack of the test manual, the raw
quantitative measures cannot be interpreted directly from a table of norms, as in the usual types of

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psychological tests. Interpretive scorer reliability is concerned

with the extent to which different examiners attribute the same personality characteristics to the
respondent on the basis of their interpretations of the identical record.

Some investigators have revealed marked disparities in the interpretations given by reasonably
well-qualified test users. A fundamental ambiguity in such results stems from the unknown
contribution of the interpreter’s skill. Neither high nor low scorer reliability can be directly
generalized to the other scorers differing appreciably from those used in the particular
investigation. In fact, one of the reasons behind the popularity of computer-based interpretation
systems for tests like the Rorschach is the uniformity of their results at their interpretive level.

When computed, coefficients of internal consistency, have usually been low. In tests like
Rorschach, P-F Study, it has been argued that different cards or items are not comparable and
hence should not be used in finding split-half reliabilities. It may be because individual items on
such tests were designed to measure different variables. In view of the various arguments against
the applicability of internal consistency measures of reliability to projective tests, one solution is
to construct parallel forms that are comparable as was done in the Holtzman Inkblot Technique.

Retest reliability, in case of projective techniques, poses a conflict. If the test is taken after a
long time interval, real personality changes might occur which may go undetected in the
examination. And if the test if taken after a short time interval, respondents might be able to recall
the responses on the first administration, thus rendering the practice essentially wrong. When
investigators instructed respondents to write different TAT stories on a retest, in order to
determine whether the same themes would recur, most of the scored variables yielded
insignificant retest correlations. (Anastasi & Uberina, 2007)

5.6 Validity

For any test, the most fundamental question is that of validity. Many validation studies of
projective tests have been concerned with concurrent criterion-related validation. Most of these
have compared the performance of contrasted groups, such as occupational or diagnostic groups.
A few studies have investigated predictive validity against such criteria as success in specialized
training, job performance, or response to psychotherapy. There has been an increasing trend to
investigate the construct validity of projective instruments by testing specific hypotheses that
underlie the use and interpretation of each test.

Some methodological deficiencies may have the effect of producing spurious (false) evidence of
validity where none exists. It can be due to contamination of either criterion or test data (the
criterion judges may have had some knowledge of the respondent’s test performance); failure to
cross-validate; stereotype accuracy; and illusory validation( continued use of instruments and
systems of diagnostic signs for which empirical validity findings are predominantly negative.

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On the other hand, it should be noted that certain inadequacies

of experimental design may have the opposite effect of underestimating the validity of a
diagnostic instrument. It is widely recognized, for example, that traditional psychiatric categories
such as schizophrenia or depersonalization disorder represent crude classification of the
disturbances actually manifested by patients. Hence, if such diagnostic categories are used as the
sole criterion for checking the validity of a personality test, negative results are inconclusive.

An increasing number of test users stress the importance of holistic and integrative principles in
personality assessment, such as the use of configural patterns and contextual variables. Many of
them have been critical of continuing attempts to validate single indicators, isolated scores,
diagnostic “signs” derived from the projective techniques. (Anastasi & Ubrina, 2007)

6. Applications of Projective Techniques

6.1 In Clinical Settings

Projective tests were initially developed for clinical diagnostic purposes and till today are
effectively employed for the purpose of diagnoses. They can be used along with such other
qualitative methods like interviews. However, their effectiveness and success is determined the
experience and skill set possessed by the clinician who administers these tests. Thus, it is
important to account for the clinician involved, which differentiates these tests from other
psychometric tests used in clinical settings. The nature of clinical judgment through which
projective and interviewing data may be used in reaching a decision about individual clients is
receiving increasing attention from psychologists. Infact about 49% of directors of clinical
psychology graduate programs and 65% of the directors of clinical internships believe that formal
training in projectives is important irrespective of them being known as quasi-tests by many
statisticians, as they have proven to be a huge help in the clinical diagnosis field.

6.2 In Marketing Research

Projective techniques have now increasingly begun to be used out of the context of their origins,
ie. Clinical settings. Tests like TATs, are used in qualitative marketing research, for instance, to
help understand the kind of emotions a particular brand image elicits. Projective tests may be
used to evaluate responses to advertisements. The tests have employed in various disciplines like
in management where they can be used to assess achievement motivation and other drives of
individuals, in sociology to assess the adoption of innovations, and in anthropology to study
cultural meaning. The application of responses is different in these disciplines than in
psychology, because the responses of multiple respondents are grouped together for analysis by
the organisation commissioning the research, rather than interpreting the meaning of the
responses given by a single subject.

PSYCHOLOGY PAPER No. 5: Personality Theories

MODULE No. 40: Projective techniques and other
measures
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7. Summary

The projective technique is based on the projective hypothesis which assumes that the responses
of an individual to ambiguous stimuli reflect their significant and relatively enduring personality
attributes.

Unlike direct personality inventories and rating scales, projective tests are less susceptible to
faking and response sets. The evaluation of performance on projective tests may differ across
examiners, which may be a reflection of the theoretical orientation, favorite hypotheses and
personal idiosyncrasies of the examiner.

There are various types of projective technique like word association and construction techniques
(Rosenweig Picture-Frustration Study), inkblot tests (Rorschach Inkblot test), and apperception
tests (Thematic Apperception test). Although, due to the use of pictures and other visual or
auditory stimuli, projective techniques can be administered on children, illiterates and old people
who may lack adequate verbal expression, they are problematic in terms of normative data which
may be lacking and inadequate.

The reliability and validity has also been held under close scrutiny. Interscorer reliability yields
higher coefficients than internal consistency and retest reliability. Certain methodological
deficiencies may produce false evidence of validity like contamination of either criterion or test
data.

Projective techniques can be used in clinical settings for diagnostic purposes, and may serve as
the source of supplementary information. In market research, projective techniques may be used
to identify potential associations between brand images and the emotions they may provoke.

PSYCHOLOGY PAPER No. 5: Personality Theories

MODULE No. 40: Projective techniques and other
measures