ABSTRACT
A collective term for all Psychological tests which require the taker to respond to the stimulus material in an open-ended imaginative or creative fashion, typically by describing a visual image, telling a story, completing a sentence, creating a picture or arranging models to create a scene. The assumption is that in doing so they will reveal their own needs, anxieties, modes of thinking, etc. In some cases the administrator will be more active, asking specific questions regarding characters depicted. This is more usual with tests designed for children. Methods of scoring and underlying theoretical assumptions vary considerably. The most famous projective test is the Rorschach test in which symmetrical ink-blots are presented, also widely known and used is Henry Murray’s original thematic apperception test (TAT). An early (1926) ‘Draw-aMan Test’ devised by US psychologist Florence Goodenough was originally intended to measure child intelligence but also later given a projective spin (Machover, 1949). Although dating much back earlier, e.g. to C.G. Jung’s word association method, first reported in 1905, projective tests enjoyed a great vogue from the late 1930s into the 1960s and continue to be used for some purposes, however, the creation of new tests significantly declined after about 1970. The use of projective tests has been two-fold. Initially, they were seen primarily as a way of assessing personality and for psychiatric diagnosis, quite quickly, however, they came to be used as therapeutic techniques in their own right, and some were designed for this purpose. Methodologically the main problem with the former use was that of reliable scoring, which played a major part in their decline as a research tool. As well as the Rorschach and TAT, the following may be noted as among the most widely used projective tests, although there are numerous others.
