RORSCHACH INKBLOT TEST

HERMANN RORSCHACH

HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS

• J. Kerner (1857) – individuals report uniquemeanings when viewing inkblot stimuli

• Binet – proposed using inkblot test whenRorschach was only 10 years old.

• Whipple (1910) – first set of standardizedinkblots

• Psychodiagnostik (1921)

• David Levy – brought Rorschach’s test to USA

INKBLOT TEST

• Name of Test:

• Author:

• Date Published:

• Publisher:

• Edition/Revision:

Rorschach Inkblot Test

Hermann Rorschach

1921

Hogrefe Publishing

Three volume work that has spanned at least three editions

NOTABLE INDIVIDUALS

• Samuel J. Beck – wrote several books onRorschach and influenced generations ofRorschach practitioners.

• Marguerite Hertz – stimulated considerableresearch on the Rorschach.

• Bruno Klopfer – published several keyRorschach books and articles.

• Zygmunt Piotrowski and David Rapaport –continued to exert influence on practitionersin spite of overwhelming contrary evidence.

DESCRIPTION

• Type of test:

• What it measure:

• Number of items:

• Type of items:

• Norm:

Individual Test

Psychological disorders

10

Inkblots

Never been adequately normed

DESCRIPTION

VALIDITY

Rorschach inkblot test’s popularity (1940sand 1950s) was based on clinical evidencegathered from a group of Rorschach virtuososwho used blind analysis

DESCRIPTION

RELIABILITY

• Traditionally the Rorschach is believed to be unreliable.

• Through meta-analysis, K. Parker (1983) reported an overall internal reliability coefficient of .83

ADMINISTRATION

• Preliminary remarks concerning thepurpose of testing.

• Free association phase

• Inquiry

SCORING

• Location – where on the blot was the perceptseen(located)?

– Whole (W), Common detail (D), or Unusual detail(Dd)

• Determinant – What feature of the inkblotdetermined the response?

– Form (F), Movement (M, FM, m), Color (C),Shading (T)

SCORING

• Form Quality – To what extent did the perceptmatch the stimulus properties of the inkblot?

– F+ or +; F; F- or –

• Content – What was the percept?

– Human (H), Animal (A), Nature (N)

• Popular-original – How frequent is the perceptseen in normative samples?

SCORING

CONFABULATORY RESPONSESThe subject overgeneralizes from a part to a whole.

DISADVANTAGE

• Overpathologizing

• Lack of relationship to psychological diagnosis

• Lack of incremental validity

• The problem of “R”

EXNER’S COMPREHENSIVE

SYSTEM

RORSCHACH’S DEVELOPMENT

• Provides standardized administration, scoring, and interpretation.

• Placed emphasis on structural rather than content variables.

• Collected a considerable body of psychometric data.

• Uniform Rorschach system

EXNER’S CRITICS

• Atheoretical nature of approach

• Underutilization of content data

• Complexity of the system

• Small sample size, large number of variables, dearth of cross-validation studies, inaccessibility to public scrutiny.

ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES

ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES

• Standardized clinical interview described by Aronow and his colleagues.

• Projective method of accessing the internal world of the individual espoused by Paul Lerner.

• Joint representation

HOLTZMAN INKBLOT TEST

INKBLOT TEST

Name of Test:

Author:

Date Published:

Publisher:

Edition/Revision:

Holtzman Inkblot Test

Wayne Holtzman

1961

Springer International Publishing

DESCRIPTION

• Type of test:

• What it measures:

• Number of items:

• Type of items:

• Norm:

Individual Test

Personality Structure

2 forms of 45 cards

Inkblot

Ranging from 5-year-olds to adults

DISCUSSION

• Has standardized administration and scoring

• Subject is permitted to give only one response per card

• Has 22 dimensions of scoring

• Well established norms for each scoring category