Question

Explain the characteristics of indirect techniques that are used to assess personality. Describe any two such tests.

Answer 1

The techniques of personality assessment described so far are known as direct techniques, because they tend to rely on information directly obtained from the person who clearly knows that her/his personality is being assessed. In these situations, people generally become self-conscious and hesitate to share their private feelings, thoughts, and motivations. When they do so, they often do it in a socially desirable manner.

Indirect techniques/projective techniques are methods of assessment based on the psychoanalytic theory.

Projective techniques were developed to assess unconscious motives and feelings. These techniques are based on the assumption that a less structured or unstructured stimulus or situation will allow the individual to project her/his feelings, desires, and needs onto that situation. These projections are interpreted by experts. A variety of projective techniques have been developed; they use various kinds of stimulus materials and situations for assessing personality. Some of them require reporting associations with stimuli (e.g., words, inkblots), some involve story writing around pictures, some require sentence completions, some require expression through drawings, and some require the choice of stimuli from a large set of stimuli.

1. The stimuli are relatively or fully unstructured and poorly defined.
2. The person being assessed is usually not told about the purpose of the assessment and the method of scoring and interpretation.
3. The person is informed that there are no correct or incorrect responses.
4. Each response is considered to reveal a significant aspect of personality.
5. Scoring and interpretation are lengthy and sometimes subjective.

The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

This test was developed by Morgan and Murray. It is a little more structured than the Inkblot test. The test consists of 30 black and white picture cards and one blank card. Each picture card depicts one or more people in a variety of situations. Each picture is printed on a card. Some cards are used with adult males or females. Others are used with boys or girls. Still, others are used in some combinations. Twenty cards are appropriate for a subject, although a lesser number of cards (even five) have also been successfully used. An example of a TAT card is given in Figure.

 

An Illustration Showing the Drawing of a Card of TAT.

Sentence Completion Test

This test makes use of a number of incomplete sentences. The starting part of the sentence is first presented and the subject has to provide an ending to the sentence. It is held that the type of endings used by the subjects reflects their attitudes, motivation, and conflicts. The test provides subjects with several opportunities to reveal their underlying unconscious motivations. A few sample items of a sentence completion test are given below.

1. My father ______.
2. My greatest fear is ______.
3. The best thing about my mother is ______.
4. I am proud of ______.