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Psychological Testing-Ⅱ: TAT Report

Eman(09), Saliha(31), Ayesha(07), Muqadas(24)

Javeria (17), Laiba(20), Abeeha(38)

Department of Applied Psychology

Govt. Graduate College Gulberg Lahore

Instructor: Miss Zehra Mohsin

March 8, 2023

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Summary

The test was administered on a woman. Who was a student. The test contains 3 cards.
The story revolved around a girl (hero) .Who had a negative attitude towards society. And she
wanted to live freely .She lived in an imaginary world and away from reality.

In card 7GF the girl was forced to marry a cruel king. This card shows the negative
attitude towards society. She was not allowed to express her feelings. Her story also showed
that every cruelty has a curse.

In card 3GF The girl wanted to marry a boy but was not able to marry him because of
the society. It caused hindrance and it caused them to part ways.

In Card 5 The hero was independent, and self obsessed. She had some god gifted qualities,
and was self orientated and creative. That's why she wants validation from everything she does.
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Bio Data

Name of Participant S.A.

Age 20 years

Gender Female

Education BS Psychology

Family System Joint Family

Any Injury None

Date and time of test 23 Mar, 2023 & 9:50 AM

Apparatus/ Test material Pencil, stop watch, recording sheet.

Purpose of Administration

We administered this test because it was the requirement of our course.

Family Background

She belongs to a joint family. She lived with her grandparents. Her mother is a house-wife and her
father is a businessman. She is the first born/child in her family. She faced family problems throughout
her life especially parental conflicts that happened after every few months. The client’s age is 20. She
did her matriculation from ‘The Educators’ and intermediate from ILM.

Behavioral Observation

The participant was a well-dressed young girl with proper hygiene and adequate manners. Her
mood was normal. Consent was taken from her for the administration of the test. Rapport was
established initially as she was willing to do the test. She listened to the instructions and tried to
maintain adequate eye contact. On presenting the first card, she held it in her hand, she smiled and
looked very confident. She crossed her legs and was fully engaged in writing. She completed the story in
10 minutes. When the second card was presented to her, she looked at it for a few seconds and
immediately started writing. She looked serious. On exposing the participant to card 3, she looked at it
for some time. She looked a little bit confused. She was trying to keenly observe the story.
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Assessment

The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is a projective test of personality. Christiana

Morgan and Henry Murray created the test in the 1930s at the Harvard Psychological Clinic. The
general opinion of how the test originated involves one of Murray's undergraduate students
telling him about how her son, when home with an illness, spent all day looking at pictures in
magazines and telling stories about them. The mother inquired whether this technique could
somehow be used in a clinical setting.
Proponents of this technique assert that a person's responses to the TAT cards can
provide information about his or her views of the self, the world, and interpersonal
relationships. Historically, it has been among the most widely researched, taught, and used of
such tests. The Thematic Apperception Test, or TAT, being a projective measure intended to
evaluate a person's patterns of thought, attitudes, observational capacity, and emotional
responses to ambiguous test materials. In this case of the TAT. The ambiguous materials consist
of a set of cards that portray human figures in a variety of settings and situations.
Because the TAT is an example of a projective instrument- that is, it asks the participant to
project his or her habitual patterns of thought and emotional responses onto the pictures on
the cards- many psychologists prefer not to call it a "test," because it implies that there are
"right" and "wrong" answers to the questions. They consider the term "technique" to be a more
accurate description of the TAT and other projective assessments. This test has had several
different "series", as well as varying pictures within each "series." For instance, "Series A" was
an initial test; while participants took the test, the examiner asked them to look at a set of
random pictures and discuss what was happening in the picture, as well as any other thoughts
they might have about it.
The test and pictures have changed over time with certain pictures deleted, modified, or
added to the series. Each picture has its own story of where it originated from and how it
became part of the test. For instance, in the first test used, a common picture was of a boy
sitting down at a table and looking at his violin.

Contents of the Test

Hero

The hero is the character in each picture with whom the participant seems to identify. It is
necessary to distinguish the hero. Motives and needs of the hero are also important as they are
interpreted critically.

Themas

The interaction of hero's need and environmental press together with the outcome
constitute a simple themas. It means the dynamical structure or the plot and dramatic
features of the story.
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Need
It refers to readiness to respond in a particular way; responsible for pushing oneself into
action. It is located within an individual.

Press

It refers to the environmental forces that interfere with and facilitate satisfaction the
various needs (the environmental factors that impact the expression of needs).

RESULTS
Quantitative Analysis

Table 1
Showing the explanation of picture no. 3GF

HERO GIRL

CHARACTERISTICS Rich and beautiful .

NEEDS Love, unfulfilled desires, happiness &

satisfaction.

PRESSES Wants family support for her life decision but

helpless to follow the commands forcefully.

THEMES She is not getting what she wants in her life.

PROCESS OF ACHIEVEMENT She wants a compatible life partner which

she thought that wouldn’t find after that one.

OUTCOME She wouldn’t feel alive to life happily.

Table 2
Showing the explanation of picture no. 7GF

HERO GIRL

CHARACTERISTICS Young, pretty and poor girl.

NEEDS Healthy life, affection, compatible life

partner.
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PRESSES Her own will or decisions regarding life.

THEMES Marriage phobia, fear of not finding good

people.

PROCESS OF ACHIEVEMENT For every brutality, there’s a curse.

OUTCOME She thinks herself in a miserable state.

Table 3
Showing the explanation of picture no. 5

HERO GIRL

CHARACTERISTICS Self-obsessed, ambitious, independent, self-

oriented and very creative.

NEEDS Affection, attention and appraisal.

PRESSES Family support, she wants to be appreciated

for her good performance.

THEMES A skilful & creative mind ideas need to be put

in order to make world see her unique traits.

PROCESS OF ACHIEVEMENT She wants to succeed in life and fulfill her

goals so the world appreciates her alot.

OUTCOME She is a positive and optimistic person.

Qualitative Analysis
In most of the stories, the same content had been depicted i.e. almost all stories revolved
around a girl (hero) who has a negative attitude towards society. These stories indicated the
need that the girl wants to live according to her free will. These stories represent that the
participant likes fantasizing and imagining the world. Her stories showed that she is far away
from reality and has unrealistic thinking. Now let’s discuss every story one by one.
In card number 3GF, the girl wanted to marry a boy but was unable to marry him because
of society. According to participants, society means her culture, norms and strict family rules.
Society caused hindrance and difficulties in their relationship. There were some enemies
(society) that separated both of them. She was being forced to live this way.
In card number 7GF, the girl was forced to marry a cruel king. This card shows participant's
negative attitude towards society. In this story the participant talked about the brutality of people. The
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girl faced miserable conditions. She was not able to express her feelings, opinions and thoughts because
of a brutal society. The participant's story also shows that for every brutality there is a curse.

In card number 5, the girl was self obsessed, ambitious and independent. She had some God-gifted
qualities, she can predict the future. She was self oriented and knows her abilities. She was creative and
wants validation from everything she does of brutal society. The participant's story also shows that for
every brutality there is a curse.

Discussion and Conclusion:

The participant's quantitative and qualitative interpretation indicates that she wanted approval
and appraisal from others. She liked to live in fantasizing and imaginary world rather than reality. She
wanted to become self-obsessed, ambitious and independent but society cause hindrance in her
dreams. She had negative attitude toward society because society forced him to do what she did not
wanted to do. Actually she was very sensitive and was badly affected by people behaviours surrounded
by him.

The development of the Thematic Apperception Test and subsequent variations in the method of
administering, scoring and interpreting the test, as well as standardization attempts by Eron, Murstein,
Dana, Arnold and McClelland and Atkinson are covered. At present only about two-thirds of the doctoral
programs in clinical, counseling, and school psychology are teaching the TAT, and the majority of these
programs are teaching non standardized techniques of interpretation. If the TAT is to meet the criteria
of adequate reliability and validity, a large-scale effort is needed to develop a standardized test that may
be easily scored and interpreted. This would be worthwhile, because research suggests that the TAT
method elicits material regarding attitudes and motivation that is not adequately elicited by other
methods.

Limitations and Suggestions

● There can be a proper interpretation method as the respondent’s answers can be heavily
influenced by the examinar’s attitudes or the test setting.
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References

Murray, H.A. (1943). Thematic Apperception Test. Harvard University Press.

Schultz, D. & Schultz, S. E. (2016). Theories of Personality (11th ed.). Cengage Learning.