Unit 4 Essay

Prompt: Describe the main physical features of Rorschach’s inkblots.

500-750+ words. Okay to go over on word count. MLA style. Please cite any additional sources

NOTE: BELOW IS A WORD FOR WORD QUOTE FROM THE PASSAGE OF TEXT CONCERNING THE PROMPT QUESTION.

Textbook: Hogan, T.P. Psychological Testing: A Practical Introduction, 3rd ed., Wiley Publishing Company, 2015

Text reads as follows…

The Rorschach Inkblot Test

The Rorschach Inkblot Test, also known as the Rorschach Inkblot Method or Rorschach Inkblot Technique, is easily the most widely used projective technique.  Quite apart from its specific characteristics, it illustrates many of the problems faced by any projective technique. For both reasons, we will spend more time on the Rorschach than on other projective techniques covered in this chapter.

The Materials

A variety of techniques employ inkblots as stimulus materials. Clearly the most famous and most widely used are the ones identified with Hermann Rorschach, a Swiss psychiatrist who experimented with a set of inkblots in the early 1900s. Rorschach died at the age of 38, just shortly after his first and only major publication about his work with the inkblots. Rorschach’s insightful work was clearly in a preliminary stage when he died. His set of inkblots served as the basis for most of the subsequent work with the inkblot technique. Hence, our presentation concentrates on these Rorschach inkblots.

Recent surveys of test usage regularly rank the Rorschach among the most frequently used tests. Craig and Horowitz (1990) asked directors of clinical practicum sites to identify tests for which graduate students in clinical psychology should receive training. The Rorschach ranked first in response to this question.

The Rorschach inkblots consist of 10 bilaterally symmetrical blots. (Actually, a few of the cards have very slight asymmetries.)  Figure 14.2 shows a blot similar to the first several Rorschach blots. Each blot appears on a rigid piece of cardboard, approximately 6x9 inches: about the size of the cover on this book, although not quite as thick. The cards are numbered I, II … X on the back, in the upper right corner. The numbering gives the standard order for presentation of the cards. The placement of the card number allows the cards to be presented to the examinee in a standard orientation. A smallish reproduction of Hermann Rorschach’s signature also adorns the back of each card in some printings. The Roman numerals on the cards are especially important because the literature on the Rorschach is replete with references to typical or atypical responses to certain cars identified by these numerals. For example, an author may say “the client’s response of ‘two birds in flight’ to Card III is very unusual.” The psychologist experienced with the Rorschach can relate to such a statement.

Most situations of Rorschach inkblots show a solid black blot on a white back-ground, probably because this is very easy to reproduce. Actually, none of the blots are solid black; some have no black in them at all. Five cards (I, IV, V, VI, and VII) are entirely achromatic, containing various shades and some solid black portions. Two cards (II and III) are mostly black and grey but have some blotches of red. The last three cards are entirely chromatic. Two cards (VIII and IX) are muted pastel combinations of pink, green, and orange. The last card (X) is a profusion of pink, blue, yellow, and green.

Administration and Scoring

Herman Rorschach’s 1921 book, Psychodiagnostik, did not give a standard set of directions for either administering or scoring the 10 inkblots. Following Rorschach’s untimely death in 1922, over a period of several decades, a number of American psychologists developed systems, that is, directions for administering and scoring, for Rorschach’s inkblots. There were five such systems, each identified in the literature with the name of the system’s principle architect. The systems included those of Beck (1937), Klopfer (1937; Klopfer & Kelley, 1942), Hertz (1943), 1948), Rapaport (Rapaport, Gill & Schafer, 1946), and Piotrowski (1937, 1957). Notice that the earliest references for all these systems sprouted in the relatively restricted time period of 1937-1946. There was also the Holtzman Inkblot Technique (Holtzman, 1961). Notice that the name “Rorschach” does not appear in the title. This was quite deliberate on Holtzman’s part. He wanted to use inkblots but in a quite different way from any of the Rorschach systems. For example, he allowed only one response to each inkblot. Nevertheless, the Holtzman technique is often lumped together with the Rorschach systems. Aiken (1999) provides brief but interesting historical sketches for the origins of these systems. Each of these systems gained some overlapping yet partially conflicting systems led to confusion. Recall our treatment of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children in Chapter 8. Imagine that there were several different sets of directions for administering this test, different ways of scoring responses, and different score profiles for it. The result would be chaos. That is the situation that prevailed for many years with the Rorschach.

Another American psychologist, John Exner, Jr. (Exner, 2003), produced what is called the Comprehensive System for administering and scoring the Rorschach inkblots. Exner attempted to incorporate the best, most defensible, and apparently most fruitful features of all five systems into his Comprehensive System. This system has become the industry standard in recent years. Hiller et al. (1999) referred to the “almost universal adoption of the Exner Comprehensive System for the Rorschach”