Rorschach inkblot test

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Image:Inkblot.gifThe Rorschach inkblot test is a method of psychological evaluation. It is a projective test associated with the psychodynamic school of thought. Psychologists use this test to try to examine the personality characteristics and emotional functioning of their patients.

1 History
2 Methods
3 Controversy
4 References
5 External links

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History

The Rorschach inkblot test was developed by Hermann Rorschach, a Swiss psychiatrist and proponent of psychoanalysis, in the early twentieth century. Rorschach devised the ten standardised cards used today as well as a scoring system. Rorschach considered his test to be a test of "perception and apperception" rather than imagination, and his original scoring system emphasizes perceptual factors - for example whether a response is influenced by form, perceived movement, or color of the blot. After Rorschach's death the orginal scoring system was developed further. John Exner summarized some of these later developments in the comprehensive Exner system, at the same time trying to make the scoring more statistically rigorous. The Exner system is very popular in the US, while in Europe the textbook by Evald Bohm, which is closer to the original Rorschach system as well as more inspired by psychoanalysis is often considered to be the standard reference work.

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Methods

There are ten official inkblots. Five inkblots are black ink on white. Two are black and red ink on white. Three are multicolored. The psychologist shows the inkblots in a particular order and asks the patient, for each card, "What might this be?". After the patient has seen and responded to all the inkblots, the psychologist then gives them to him again one at a time to study. The patient is asked to list everything he sees in each blot, where he sees it, and what there is in the blot that makes it look like that. The blot can also be rotated. . As the patient is examining the inkblots, the psychologist writes down everything the patient says or does, no matter how trivial. The psychologist takes into account whether all of the card or a portion of it is used.

Methods of interpretation differ. The most widely used method in the United States is based on the work of John Exner. In the Exner system, responses are scored with reference to their level of vagueness or synthesis of multiple images in the blot, the location of the response, which of a variety of determinants is used to produce the response (for example, whether the shape of the inkblot, its color, or its texture is primary in making it look like what it is said to resemble, the form quality of the response (to what extent a response is faithful to how the actual inkblot looks), the contents of the response (what the respondent actually sees in the blot), the degree of mental organizing activity that is involved in producing the response, and any illogical, incongruous, or incoherent aspects of responses. Using the scores for these categories, the examiner then performs a series of mathematical calculations producing a structural summary of the test data. The results of the structural summary are interpreted using existing empirical research data on personality characteristics that have been demonstrated to be associated with different kinds of responses. Both the calculations of scores and the interpretation are often done electronically.

A common misconception of the Rorschach test is that its interpretation is based primarily on the contents of the response- what the examinee sees in the inkblot. In fact, the contents of the response are only a comparatively small portion of a broader cluster of variables that are used to interpret the Rorschach data.

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Controversy

The Rorschach inkblot test is controversial for two reasons.

First, because the blots of ink are inherently meaningless and subjective, evaluating the results of a test requires the blots of ink to have meaning in the first place. Otherwise, the images projected into the patterns would be of little value in assessing personality traits. But the psychologist must project onto the patterns in order to give them any meaning and, in a sense, take the test him/herself. So the results of any test will not only show what the patient projected onto the ink blots, but also what the psychologist projected onto the projections of the patient. Third parties could be called in to evaluate what effect the psychologist's interpretations had on the results of the test, but the third parties' evaluations would also be slanted by their own subconscious interpretations of meaningless patterns. The process of evaluating and re-evaluating could go on forever.

This criticism may not be a cogent one given the fact that current Rorschach testing uses empirical data based on research to interpret responses.

Second, although a large number of people with a certain trait see specific images in an ink blot—sociable people have a tendency to see animals in this image; people with schizophrenia have a tendency to see a vase in this image—any given person who sees an image that is seen in an ink blot by a large number of people with a specific trait will not necessarily have that trait her/himself. The Holtzman Inkblot Test was designed to resolve some of the problems of the Rorschach test.

When interpreted as a projective test, results are poorly verifiable. The Exner system of scoring, which interprets the test in terms of what factor (shading, color, outline, etc.) of the inkblot leads to each of the tested person's comments, is meant to address this, but problems of test validity remain.

Supporters of the test try to keep the actual cards secret so that the answers are spontaneous. This practice is consistent with the American Psychological Association's ethical standards of preserving test security. The official test is sold only to licensed professionals. These ethics were violated in 2004 when the method of administering the tests and the ten official images were published on the Internet. This reduced the value of projective testing. While the Rorschach Society claims the blots are copyrighted, this has been disputed by others who state that the blots should be in the public domain legally based upon when they were first created and how long the creator has been dead.

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