Thematic Apperception Test

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The Thematic Apperception Test is an example of a projective test.

Historically, the Thematic Apperception Test or TAT has been among the most widely used, researched, and taught projective psychological tests. Its adherents claim that it taps a subject's unconscious to reveal repressed aspects of personality, motives and needs for achievement, power and intimacy, and problem-solving abilities.

Procedure

The TAT is popularly known as the picture interpretation technique because it uses a standard series of provocative yet ambiguous pictures about which the subject must tell a story. The subject is asked to tell as dramatic a story as they can for each picture presented, including:

• what has led up to the event shown
• what is happening at the moment
• what the characters are feeling and thinking, and
• what the outcome of the story was.

If these elements are omitted, particularly for children or individuals of low cognitive abilities, the evaluator may ask the subject about them directly.

There are 31 cards in the standard form of the TAT. Some of the cards show male figures, some female, some both male and female figures, some of ambiguous gender, some adults, some children, and some show no human figures at all. One is completely blank. Although the cards were originally designed to be matched to the subject in terms of age and gender, any card may be used with any subject. Most practitioners choose a set of approximately ten cards, either using cards that they feel are generally useful, or that they believe will encourage the subject's expression of emotional conflicts relevant to their specific history and situation. ^[1]

Scoring Systems

The TAT is a projective test in that, like the Rorschach test, its assessment of the subject is based on what he or she projects onto the ambiguous images. Therefore, to complete the assessment each story created by a subject must be carefully analyzed to uncover underlying needs, attitudes, and patterns of reaction. Although most clinical practitioners do not use formal scoring systems, several formal scoring systems have been developed for analyzing TAT stories systematically and consistently. Two common methods that are currently used in research are the:

• Defense Mechanisms Manual DMM^[2]. This assesses three defense mechanisms: denial (least mature), projection (intermediate), and identification (most mature). A person's thoughts/feelings are projected in stories involved.

• Social Cognition and Object Relations SCOR^[3] scale. This assesses four different dimensions of object relations: Complexity of Representations of People, Affect-Tone of Relationship Paradigms, Capacity for Emotional Investment in Relationships and Moral Standards, and Understanding of Social Causality.

History

TAT was developed by the American psychologists Henry A. Murray and Christiana D. Morgan at Harvard during the 1930s to explore the underlying dynamics of personality, such as internal conflicts, dominant drives, interests, and motives.

After World War II, the TAT was adopted more broadly by psychoanalysts and clinicians to evaluate emotionally disturbed patients.

Later, in the 1970s, the Human Potential Movement encouraged psychologists to use the TAT to help their clients understand themselves better and stimulate personal growth.

Criticisms

Declining adherence to the Freudian principle of repression on which the test is based has caused the TAT to be criticised as false or outdated by many professional psychologists. Their criticisms are that the TAT is unscientific because it cannot be proved to be valid (that it actually measures what it claims to measure), or reliable (that it gives consistent results over time, due to the challenge of standardising interpretations of the stories produced by subjects). Some critics of the TAT cards have observed that the characters and environments are dated, even ‘old-fashioned,’ creating a ‘cultural or psychosocial distance’ between the patients and these stimuli that makes identifying with them less likely ^[4]. Also, in researching the responses of subjects given photographs versus the TAT, researchers found that the TAT cards evoked more ‘deviant’ stories (i.e., more negative) than photographs, leading them to conclude that the difference was due to the differences in the characteristics of the images used as stimuli. In a 2005 dissertation Matthew Narron, Psy.D.^[5] attempted to address these issues by reproducing a Bellak 10 card set photographically and performing an outcome study. The results concluded that the old TAT elicited answers that included many more specific time references than the new TAT.

Contemporary applications of TAT

Despite criticisms, the TAT remains widely used as a tool for research into areas of psychology such as dreams, fantasies, mate selection and what motivates people to choose their occupation. Sometimes it is used in a psychiatric or psychological context to assess personality disorders, thought disorders, in forensic examinations to evaluate crime suspects, or to screen candidates for high-stress occupations. It is also commonly used in routine psychological evaluations, typically without a formal scoring system, as a way to explore emotional conflicts and object relations ^[6].

TAT is widely used in France and Argentina following the "French School" concepts.

There is also a British and a Roman School.

The Israeli army uses the test for evaluating potential officers.

It is also used by the Service Selection Board of India.

TAT in popular culture

• Thomas Harris' novel Red Dragon includes a scene where the imprisoned psychiatrist and serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter mocks a previous attempt to administer the test to him.
• Michael Crichton included the TAT in the battery of tests given to the disturbed patient and main character Harry Benson in his novel, The Terminal Man.
• In the MTV cartoon Daria, Daria and her sister Quinn are given a test that appears to be the TAT by the school psychologist on their first day at their new school. Daria and Quinn are shown a picture of two people. Quinn makes up a story about the two people having a discussion about popularity and dating. Daria states that she sees "a herd of beautiful wild ponies running free across the plains." The psychologist tells her the picture is of two people, not ponies. Daria states, "last time I took one of these tests they told me they were clouds. They said they could be whatever I wanted." The psychologist explains, "That's a different test, dear. In this test, they're people and you tell me what they're discussing." To which Daria characteristically replies, "Oh... I see. All right, then. It's a guy and a girl and they're discussing... a herd of beautiful wild ponies running free across the plains."^[7] (Cf. the Rorschach test administered to Charly Gordon in Flowers for Algernon, during which Drs. Niemur and Strauss ask him what he "sees" on a card, he replies that he sees an inkblot, they ask him to pretend that it is something else, and he replies that he "pretends" a tablecloth with an ink pen "leeking" all over it.)
• The TAT is administered to Alex, the main character of A Clockwork Orange.

See also

• Psychological testing

References

1. ^ Cramer, P. (2004). Storytelling, narrative, and the Thematic Apperception Test. New York: Guilford Press.
2. ^ Cramer, P (1991). The Development of Defense Mechanisms: Theory, Research, and Assessment. New York: Springer-Verlag. 
3. ^ Westen, Drew. Clinical Assessment of Object Relations Using the TAT. Journal of Personality Assessment, Volume 56, Issue 1 February 1991 , pages 56 - 74. 
4. ^ Holmstrom, R.W., Silber, D.E., & Karp, S.A. (1990). Development of the Apperceptive Personality Test. Journal of Personality Assessment, 54 (1 & 2), 252-264.
5. ^ Narron, M. C. (2005). Updating the TAT: A Photographic Revision of the Thematic Apperception Test, Dissertations Abstract International, DAI-B 66/01, p. 568, Jul 2005
6. ^ Cramer, 2004
7. ^ http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daria#.22Esteemsters.22_.5B1.01.5D

External links

• Book review of Storytelling, Narrative, and the Thematic Apperception Test
• Research into the origins of imagery used in the TAT
• Information about the Thematic Apperception Test from Thomson Gale