ABSTRACT
Richard Dana’s Objective Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) Scoring System was developed in an effort to create a simple approach to projective testing that is both economical and facilitative in the clinical setting. Three scoring categories—Perceptual Organization, Perceptual Range, and Perceptual Personalization—are used to identify participants’ varying degrees of mental illness. Dana’s system can be scored with high interrater reliability by a psychologically naive clerk. Using five different TAT cards for men and for women, Dana has shown good criterion-related validity and cross-validation, correctly placing individuals into clinical groups (i.e., normal, neurotic, and psychotic) a large percentage of the time. Dana’s system also has utility in the domain of personality research; both applications continue to be relevant today.
