Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D
Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India
The measurement of personality in an universally accepted technique is really a tough job. Even since time immemorial numerous efforts are made. The basic difficulty in personality measurement is due to two reasons-
1- No universally accepted unit for measurement.
2- No starting zero point.
Even than numerous techniques are developed,. These techniques can be classified into two groups-
1- Pseudo- scientific techniques-Like, Numerology , Palmistry, Astrology, Physiognomy techniques etc
2- Scientific techniques.
The scientific techniques can further divided into two forms-
A-Objective techniques- Like, Observation techniques , Interviews techniques , Personal documents techniques ,and Questionnaires techniques
-B-Projective techniques- Like, Thematic Apperception Test, House-Tree Person techniques , Free Association techniques, Dream Analysis techniques , Word Association techniques and Rorschach ink blot technique.
- The ‘projective techniques’, try to deal not with certain traits in isolation but with what is often called the ‘total personality’. The typical result of an examination by means of one of the projective techniques is not a rating of a given trait or a given set of traits, but a personality description in which an attempt is made to convey a total impression of the person who has been tested.
The actual term ‘projection’, as used in connection with these tests, is something of a misnomer. Originally, the term was used by Freud to characterize the tendency to ascribe to the external world repressed mental processes which we not consciously recognized ; as a result of this repression the content of these processes was supposed to be experienced as part of the outer world.
As Freud would have put it, having repressed any knowledge of this reprehensible trait in them- selves, they tended to project it outwards and found evidence for it in other people, contrary to objective fact.
While this was the original meaning of projection, the term was broadened and now means simply a tendency on the part of an individual to express his thoughts, feelings, and emotions, whether conscious or unconscious, in structuring some relatively unstructured material, for example If you’ve ever looked to the sky and saw images in the clouds, then you can appreciate the idea behind the Rorschach. If the cards have no specific shape (see example to the left), just like the clouds, the shapes we see are projections from our unconsciousness. In other words, it is not uncommon for children to see bunny rabbits, kitty cats and monsters in the clouds. These images represent their needs for life and love as well as their underlying fears about death and aggression.
It is in this that the projective tests differ most from the objective tests . In an objective test there is a correct answer, a right and wrong way of doing things, or at least a numerical measure of success and failure. In the projective test all this vanishes. The subject may be shown a picture and asked to write a story about the contents; what situation is depicted in the picture; how the situation came about ; how it will end ; what will happen to the main characters, and so on.
The Rorschach is the most commonly used projective technique. The test consists of ten white cards with blots of ink on them in either black, black and red, or multi colour. These inkblots were originally random in design and these have been maintained although much research has gone into each card.
These ink blots are shown to the subject, who is given the following instructions. People see all sorts of things in these ink blots ; now tell me what you see, what it might be for you, what it makes you think of ?.’
Interpretation of the results is attempted by noting four things;
First, is called analysis by location, where on the card does the subject see whatever he claims to see? Does he make use of the whole card, or does he just see a tiny detail somewhere in the corner?
Second, is called finding the determinants of the ink blot which the subject has used in constructing a response, such as the form, the colour, the shading, and so forth.
Third, is called the detailing the content of the response, i.e. what kind of thing did the subject see.
Fourth is, the popularity or originality of the response is taken into account; some people give only stereo- typed replies, others see highly original and unusual things in the ink-blot.
Few relationships have been worked out between these various categories and personality characteristics. Thus, a tendency to give responses based on the whole card rather than on parts of it is supposed to indicate a tendency towards making broad surveys of presented material, a tendency which, if exaggerated, indicates a person fond of expansive generalities and neglectful of obvious detail. Conversely, great attention to small details in the blot is sup- posed to denote habitual attention to the concrete and a more practical approach. Taken to extremes it is supposed to indicate pedantry and obsessions of thoroughness and cautiousness.
The tendency for responses to be dominated by colour is supposed to indicate habitual impulsiveness, eccentricity, capacity for intense emotional experiences, and in extreme cases violence and flightiness. Attention to form rather than to colour is supposed to indicate intellectual steadiness or introversion. Determination of responses by the shading characteristics of the blot is supposed to indicate a considerable degree of repression.
A whole mythology has grown up around the Rorschach test to such an extent that many psychiatrists, despairing of ever en- compassing the complexities of neurotic behaviour in the interview situation, have grasped at the Rorschach as the proverbial man grasps at a straw, and pay considerable attention to its verdict.
H.J.Eysenck, the famous psychologist quoted an experiment to illustrate the truth of this observation. In this experiment, a whole group of projection tests, including the Rorschach, was given to prospective pilots in the United States Air Force. These were followed up over a period of years, and finally two groups were selected, those who had unmistakably broken down with neurotic disorders of one kind or another, and those who had made a spectacularly good adjustment in spite of considerable stress.
In other words, out of a very large group of people, two groups were chosen representing, respectively, those making the best and those making the worst kind of adjustment. Their projective test records were then taken out of their files and given to recognized experts in the field, the instructions being to say which records would predict good adjustment and which would predict poor adjustment. The experts were familiar with the criterion used, had had experience with the type of task on which they were engaged and, on the whole, regarded it as a reasonable experiment in which they could expect to be successful. In actual fact, not one of the experts succeeded in predicting with better than chance success the future performance of these airmen. They failed when using a single test; they failed when using all the tests together; and they failed when their predictions were combined in all possible ways. Only one single result was statistically significant, and that was significant in the wrong direction.
When we write a personality characterization there are a number of factors which are acceptable to the person to whom it is meant to apply, although objectively there may be no connection at all. In the first place, there are a number of traits which most people think they possess, although in reality they may not possess them at all. An example of this has already been given when it was pointed out that 98 per cent of the population consider that they have an above average sense of humor. If, therefore, we want to write a description which will be acceptable to almost anybody, we would merely have to introduce a sentence like ‘ You have a very good sense of humor’; 98 per cent of the population, at least, will agree with us that this correctly describes them and will marvel at the accuracy with which we have been able to diagnose their handwriting, or read their Rorschach, or analyse their Thematic Apperception test. Similarly, most people at times have feelings of insecurity ; most people feel that their real worth is not always being appreciated and that they have sometimes been pepped at the post by people less able than they. Just fill your whole personality description with universally acceptable statements of this kind, and everyone will recognize his own picture in them.
This truth has been experimentally demonstrated on several occasions. The experimenter gives his students an outline, say, of the beliefs of graphologists or of Rorschach experts; he then asks them to submit a sample of their hand- writing, or actually to undergo the Rorschach test. He takes the records away with him and after a few days hands out to each member of the class a typed statement of what the Rorschach or the graphology specimen has revealed about each student’s character. The students are given a few minutes to read through their characterizations and are then asked whether they consider these to be accurate descriptions of their own personalities. Usually ninety to ninety five out of one hundred raise their hands. The experimenter then asks one of them to read out his own characterization. All the others then realize that each one of them has been given the same personality description and that what they all agreed to as being representative of themselves was, in fact, an overall set of traits applicable to practically everyone.
Another factor working in favour of the analysis is the vagueness and ambiguity of the terms used. The persons whose characters are being analysed almost inevitably pick out that meaning of a term or phrase which they consider applicable to themselves, forgetting all the other meanings which might not be so applicable.
These two factors work particularly strongly in the case of neurotic and psychotic patients, where the Rorschach is most frequently applied. It is perfectly safe to say in every case that the patient is anxious or depressed ; if he is not overtly so, then it can al- ways be argued that some other symptom acts as a defence against his anxiety which thus remains unconscious. This policy of ‘heads I win, tails you lose’, which is so characteristic of psychoanalysis as a whole, has been triumphantly applied by the Rorschach experts, and serves to make any experimental examination of their tenets difficult.
Therefore we must rule out entirely the personality description as being in any way an acceptable proof of the accuracy of the projective type of technique. We can see why graphologists, palmists, and other self-styled scientists are so successful in bamboozling the public, and why astrologers can still persuade the more gullible members of the public of their occult powers. The fact that clinical psychologists and psychiatrists have fallen for a similar type of trick does not argue too well for their critical acumen and scientific outlook. Frequently another method is used which has become known as the matching method. In this an attempt is made to rule out the many sources of error inherent in a simple assessment of personality description. What is done instead is this. Five patients, say, are given the Rorschach test; their records are then analysed and the personality descriptions resulting there from are handed over to another expert who is also given the case records of the same five people. His task, then, is to match the case records and the personality descriptions. If he succeeds in doing so, then it is argued there must be some truth in the personality description, because otherwise how could a correct matching be obtained?
Bur this method also is subject to so many sources of error as to be practically useless. It is very fre- quently possible to get from the record indices of a person’s background, intelligence, and upbringing which may serve to identify him, but which are completely independent of the purpose of the test. Thus, in one experiment dealing with graphology, which I carried out myself, the subject was asked to copy the questions of a questionnaire which he also had to answer ; the answers were then cut off and the hand- writing specimen supplied to an expert. One subject in numbering the questions left out number 13 and put 12a instead. No wonder he was called ‘superstitious’ by the expert and recognized and correctly matched because of this single adjective.
Another person in a similar study of the Rorschach gave many anatomical responses and was correctly identified as a medical student, the only one in the sample of five.
What is required in studies of this kind is to have the matching done, not only by the expert in graphology, or the Rorschach,, but also by a very intelligent person who is quite ignorant of the rule of interpretation of these various tests. I have found in a number of investigations that by relying entirely on external cues of the kind mentioned, such an independent observer was actually more successful in performing correct matching than Rorschach and graphology experts. Without control experiments of this kind matching is not a safe method to use as evidence.