In psychology, a projective test is a personality test designed to let a person respond to ambiguous stimuli, presumably revealing hidden emotions and internal conflicts projected by the person into the test. This is sometimes contrasted with a so-called "objective test" / "self-report test", which adopt a "structured" approach as responses are analyzed according to a presumed universal standard (for example, a multiple choice exam), and are limited to the content of the test. The responses to projective tests are content analyzed for meaning rather than being based on presuppositions about meaning, as is the case with objective tests. Projective tests have their origins in psychoanalysis, which argues that humans have conscious and unconscious attitudes and motivations that are beyond or hidden from conscious awareness.
Theory
The general theoretical position behind projective tests is that whenever a specific question is asked, the response will be consciously-formulated and socially determined. These responses do not reflect the respondent's unconscious or implicit attitudes or motivations. The respondent's deep-seated motivations may not be consciously recognized by the respondent or the respondent may not be able to verbally express them in the form and structure demanded by the questioner. Advocates of projective tests stress that the ambiguity of the stimuli presented within the tests allow subjects to express thoughts that originate on a deeper level than tapped by explicit questions, and provide content that may not be captured by responsive tools that lacks appropriate items. After some decrease in interest in the 1980s and 1990s, newer research suggesting that implicit motivation is best captured in this way has increased the research and use of these tools.
Projective hypothesis
This holds that an individual puts structure on an ambiguous situation in a way that is consistent with their own conscious and unconscious needs. It is an indirect method- testee is talking about something that comes spontaneously from the self without conscious awareness or editing.
- Reduces temptation to fake
- Does not depend as much on verbal abilities
- Taps both conscious and unconscious traits
- Focus is clinical perspective - not normative - but has developed norms over the years
The Wartegg Test is a graphic projective test, semi-structured, consisting of a form with 8 squares or panels, numbered from 1 to 8, in two parallel rows and divided by a wide black border. In each panel there is a specific graphic element; the individual uses this as a starting point and must complete a drawing with meaning in each panel. The Wartegg Test (W.Z.T.) is suitable for group-administration thanks to a custom-designed software by the I.I.W. of Rome and it’s able to point out with a significant cost benefit improvement, a thorough evaluation of potential psychological troubles; and psychological aptitudes and offer careers guidance for the future employment of the examined individual.
Common variants
Hermann Rorschach 
The best known and most frequently used projective test is the Rorschach inkblot test. This test was originally developed in 1921 to diagnose schizophrenia. Subjects are shown a series of ten irregular but symmetrical inkblots, and asked to explain what they see. The subject's responses are then analyzed in various ways, noting not only what was said, but the time taken to respond, which aspect of the drawing was focused on, and how individual responses compared to other responses for the same drawing. It is important that the Rorschach test and other projective tests be conducted by experienced professionals to ensure validity and consistency of results. The Rorschach was commonly scored using the Comprehensive System (CS), until the development of the newer scoring system, the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS) in 2011. In an influential review, the Rorschach Inkblot Test using the CS method has been labeled as a "problematic instrument" in terms of its psychometric properties.
The new scoring system has stronger psychometric properties than the CS, and, like the CS, allows for a standardized administration of the test which is something that is lacking in a majority of projective measures. Additional psychometric strengths present with the R-PAS include updated normative data. The norms from the CS were updated to also include protocols from 15 other countries, resulting in updated international norms. The CS international norm data set was based on fewer countries, most of which were European only. The new international norms provide a better representation of the Western hemisphere and westernized countries. Concerning differences in administration of the task across both scoring systems, a critical issue with CS administration was addressed in the development of the R-PAS. Following CS administration procedure, it was common to obtain too few or too many responses per card which could result in an invalidated protocol (due to too few responses) or in error.
The new administration procedure introduced in the R-PAS requires the clinician to initially tell the examinee that they should provide two or three responses per card, and allows the clinician to prompt for additional responses if too few are given, or to pull cards away if too many are given. Therefore, the new administration procedure addresses the critical issue of number of responses that was prevalent with use of the CS administration procedure. The CS administration procedure prevented clinicians from prompting for more responses or pulling cards when too many responses were provided. An additional psychometric improvement concerns the presentation of obtained scores. With the R-PAS system, it is now possible to change scores to percentiles and convert percentiles to standard scores which can be presented visually and allow for easy comparison to the normative data. With the CS, this was not possible and it was more difficult to compare results to normative comparison groups.
Lastly, the R-PAS scores have been shown to possess similar and sometimes stronger inter-rater reliability than was seen in scores from the CS. This means that when different clinicians score the same protocol, they are quite likely to derive the same interpretations and scores.
Holtzman Inkblot Test
Morgan & Murray
Another popular projective test is the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) in which an individual views ambiguous scenes of people, and is asked to describe various aspects of the scene; for example, the subject may be asked to describe what led up to this scene, the emotions of the characters, and what might happen afterwards. A clinician will evaluate these descriptions, attempting to discover the conflicts, motivations and attitudes of the respondent.
A researcher may use a specific scoring system that establishes consistent criteria of expressed thoughts and described behaviors associated with a specific trait, e.g., the need for Achievement, which has a validated and reliable scoring system. In the answers, the respondent "projects" their unconscious attitudes and motivations into the picture, which is why these are referred to as "projective tests." Although the TAT serves as a popular psychological test, its psychometric validity has been questioned.
The TAT is popularly known as the picture interpretation technique because it uses a series of provocative yet ambiguous pictures about which the subject is asked to tell a story. The TAT manual provides the administration instructions used by Murray, although these procedures are commonly altered. The subject is asked to tell as dramatic a story as they can for each picture presented, including the following:
- what has led up to the event shown
- what is happening at the moment
- what the characters are feeling and thinking
- what the outcome of the story was
If these elements are omitted, particularly for children or individuals of low cognitive abilities, the evaluator may ask the subject about them directly. Otherwise, the examiner is to avoid interjecting and should not answer questions about the content of the pictures. The examiner records stories verbatim for later interpretation.
The complete version of the test contains 32 picture cards. Some of the cards show male figures, some female, some both male and female figures, some of ambiguous gender, some adults, some children, and some show no human figures at all. One card is completely blank and is used to elicit both a scene and a story about the given scene from the storyteller. Although the cards were originally designed to be matched to the subject in terms of age and gender, any card may be used with any subject. Murray hypothesized that stories would yield better information about a client if the majority of cards administered featured a character similar in age and gender to the client.
Although Murray recommended using 20 cards, most practitioners choose a set of between 8 and 12 selected cards, either using cards that they feel are generally useful, or that they believe will encourage the subject's expression of emotional conflicts relevant to their specific history and situation. However, the examiner should aim to select a variety of cards in order to get a more global perspective of the storyteller and to avoid confirmation bias (i.e., finding only what you are looking for).
Many of the TAT drawings consist of sets of themes such as: success and failure, competition and jealousy, feeling about relationships, aggression, and sexuality. These are usually depicted through picture cards.
Karen Machover
The Draw-A-Person test requires the subject to draw a person. The results are based on a psychodynamic interpretation of the details of the drawing, such as the size, shape and complexity of the facial features, clothing and background of the figure. As with other projective tests, the approach has very little demonstrated validity and there is evidence that therapists may attribute pathology to individuals who are merely poor artists. A popular review has concluded that its scientific status "can best be declared as weak". A similar class of techniques is kinetic family drawing.
Test administration involves the administrator requesting children to complete three individual drawings on separate pieces of paper. Children are asked to draw a man, a woman, and themselves. No further instructions are given and the child is free to make the drawing in whichever way he/she would like. There is no right or wrong type of drawing, although the child must make a drawing of a whole person each time — i.e. head to feet, not just the face.
The test has no time limit; however, children rarely take longer than about 10 or 15 minutes to complete all three drawings. Harris's book (1963) provides scoring scales which are used to examine and score the child's drawings. The test is completely non-invasive and non-threatening to children, which is part of its appeal.
The purpose of the test is to assist professionals in inferring children's cognitive developmental levels with little or no influence of other factors such as language barriers or special needs. Any other uses of the test are merely projective and are not endorsed by the first creator.
Dr. Albert J Levis
The Animal Metaphor test consists of a series of creative and analytical prompts in which the person filling out the test is asked to create a story and then interpret its personal significance. Unlike conventional projective tests, the Animal Metaphor Test works as both a diagnostic and therapeutic battery. Unlike the Rorschach test and TAT, the Animal Metaphor is premised on self-analysis via self-report questions. The test combines facets of art therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and insight therapy, while also providing a theoretical platform of behavioral analysis.
The test has been used widely as a clinical tool, as an educational assessment, and in human resource selection (needs reference). The test is accompanied by an inventory, The Relational Modality Evaluation Scale, a self-report measure that targets individuals' particular ways of resolving conflict and ways of dealing with relational stress. These tests were developed at the Center for the Study of Normative Behavior in Hamden, CT, a clinical training and research center.
Herman Ebbinghaus
Sentence completion tests are a class of semi-structured projective techniques. Sentence completion tests typically provide respondents with beginnings of sentences, referred to as "stems", and respondents then complete the sentences in ways that are meaningful to them. The responses are believed to provide indications of attitudes, beliefs, motivations, or other mental states.
Therefore, sentence completion technique, with such advantage, promotes the respondents to disclose their concealed feelings. Notwithstanding, there is debate over whether or not sentence completion tests elicit responses from conscious thought rather than unconscious states. This debate would affect whether sentence completion tests can be strictly categorized as projective tests.
A sentence completion test form may be relatively short, such as those used to assess responses to advertisements, or much longer, such as those used to assess personality. A long sentence completion test is the Forer Sentence Completion Test, which has 100 stems. The tests are usually administered in booklet form where respondents complete the stems by writing words on paper.
The structures of sentence completion tests vary according to the length and relative generality and wording of the sentence stems. Structured tests have longer stems that lead respondents to more specific types of responses; less structured tests provide shorter stems, which produce a wider variety of responses..
Silvan Tomkins
The Picture Arrangement Test consists of 25 sets of 3 pictures which the subject must arrange into a sequence that they "feel makes the best sense". The reliability of this test has been disputed, however. For example, patients suffering from schizophrenia have been found to score as more "normal" than patients with no such mental disorders. Other picture tests:
- Thompson version
- CAT (animals) and CAT-H (humans)
- Senior AT
- Blacky pictures test - dogs
- Picture Story Test - adolescents
- Education Apperception Test -attitudes towards learning
- Michigan Picture Test - children 8-14
- TEMAS - Hispanic children
- Make-A-Picture-Story (MAPS) - make own pictures from figures, 6 years and older
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