Projective tests: the 5 most used types

Although they are reviled by many psychologists, projective tests such as Rorschach's and Thematic apperception can be very useful in evaluating the personality of adults and children old.

In this article we will describe the 5 most used types of projective tests, including associative and expressive or graphic techniques.

• Related article: "Types of psychological tests: their functions and characteristics"

What are projective tests?

Projective tests are methods of assessing personality and other mental characteristics that are based on ambiguous and unstructured stimuli. The logic behind this type of test corresponds to the hypothesis that it is more likely that the evaluated individuals project their mental processes into a test if the material is ambiguous and stimulates imagination.

These techniques have traditionally been framed in psychoanalytic theory, according to which the personality has a stable character and is largely determined by irrational impulses that escape the consciousness of individuals. However, from 

psychoanalysis It is argued that it is possible to identify the contents of the unconscious through various procedures.

Since it is assumed that the respondent does not know the purpose of the items that make up the test, projective tests are considered less susceptible to distortion than other methods of psychological evaluation, mainly those that are based on the self-report. Projective tests are said to be masked evaluation techniques.

Although this type of test has been highly criticized by psychologists of other theoretical orientations at the methodological, the truth is that the long tradition of using projective tests has allowed a high degree of systematization in many of these. A particularly clear case in this regard is the famous Rorschach test. However, despite this systematization, its effectiveness is seriously questioned if we are guided by the meta-analyzes that have been carried out in this regard.

Types of projective techniques

There are different types of projective tests: the structural ones, which are based on the organization of the visual material; thematic ones, consisting of telling a story from different images; expressive or graphic ones, focused on drawing; the constructive ones, such as the imaginary village test or the diagnostic game, and the associative ones (p. and. incomplete sentences).

Below we will describe the most popular tests and projective test types, including examples of all the classes we mentioned in the previous paragraph. We will put aside refractory tests such as graphology, which claims to determine personality from the aspect of writing and has not received any empirical support.

1. Rorschach test

In 1921 the psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach published a psychological test consisting of 10 sheets with ambiguous looking symmetrical ink stains. Over the years, subjectivity in the interpretation of this test decreased notably; In particular, the Exner evaluation system, based on scientific research, became popular in the 1980s.

In the Rorschach test, the person who evaluates presents the pictures in a certain order to which he is being evaluated; in each case this dYou must answer the question "What could this be?" without receiving any further indication. Subsequently, the evaluator shows you each image again to discover which aspects of these elicited the responses.

Among the indicators that are analyzed in the Rorschach test we find the number of responses (normal in adults is that they are between 17 and 27 in total), the frequency of the answers given in the general population or the predominance of certain contents. This analysis may suggest psychopathology; For example, monotony is associated with depression.

Subsequently, other structural tests based on ink stains have been developed, such as Holtzman's, which claims to have a greater reliability and is composed of 45 images, and the Zulliger Z-Test, which consists of only 3 sheets and is intended as a test of screening.

• Related article: "The Rorschach inkblot test"

2. Murray's thematic apperception test

The thematic apperception test or T.A.T., developed by Henry Murray, is the most used thematic projective test, especially in the evaluation of people of legal age. It is made up of 31 sheets of which only 20 are applied to each individual, depending on their biological sex and her age.

The images are much more structured than those of the Rorschach test: they show scenes related to topics such as family, fear, sex or violence from which the subject must elaborate a story that includes a past, a present and a future. The goal is to analyze psychological needs and pressures of the evaluated person.

There are variations of the T.A.T. for different age groups. The C.A.T. (“Child apperception test”) are applied to children of ages, cultural levels and physical and psychological characteristics while the old age apperception test (SAT) assesses typical variables in the elderly, such as loneliness or disability.

Two other well-known thematic tests are the Phillipson object relations test and the Rosenzweig frustration test. The images of the former show an intermediate degree of structuring compared to the T.A.T. and the Rorschach, and the Rosenzweig test presents frustrating scenes in which the person must add a dialogue.

3. Children's thematic tests

The Blacky and Pata Negra sheet tests, created respectively by Gerald Blum and Louis Corman, are specific thematic tests for children. Both are based on images of animals (Blacky is a dog and Pata Negra is a pig) that serve as stimuli for the little ones to talk about their vision of themselves and their family.

The fairy tales test is one of the most recent thematic projective tests; It was developed by Carina Coulacoglou in the 1990s. In this case, the stimuli are drawings of famous characters from fairy tales, such as Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf or Snow White and the dwarfs, and the child must answer several previously established questions.

4. Expressive or graphic techniques

In this type of techniques, the evaluated person has to draw certain elements under the instructions of the evaluator. In comparison with the Rorschach test and with the T.A.T., we can say that these tests they have a low level of standardization and their interpretation is quite subjective, although this does not mean that they cannot be useful tools.

Within this category we find Buck's house-tree-person (HTP) test, the drawing test of the person in the rain Abramson's test, Corman's family drawing test, Koch's tree test, and Machover's human figure drawing test.

5. Associative techniques

Associative techniques consist of emitting responses in relation to a given stimulus. The classic example of these tests is the word association, used by classical authors such as Galton and Jung, in which a list of terms is presented to which the evaluated person has to answer with the first word that comes to mind.

The incomplete sentences test is similar, although in this case instead of associating one word with another, the sentence started by the evaluator should be finished. Zazzo's wishful thinking (or bestiary) test analyzes fear of death and defense mechanisms based on the answer to the question “What would you want to become if you stopped having human? "