The Rorschach
History
 (1921) Hermann Rorschach
– Psychodiagnostik
 Form Interpretation Test
– Diagnostic approach for schizophrenia
– Original set contained 40 inkblots
 15 used regularly (eventually narrowed down to 10
due to printing costs)
 Devised a set of codes
 Printing error led to use of shading
History (cont.)
 After Rorschach’s death - use of blots
focused on clinical and/or vocational
applications
 Focus on content analysis
 David Levy (1926) brought plates to US
 Samuel Beck (1927)
– standardization study of the inkblots
 Bruno Klopfer (1922) - Germany
– studied under Carl Jung in Zurich
– immigrated to US in 1934
History (cont.)
 Klopfer and his students developed a scoring
system(1936)
 Beck scoring system (1937)
 David Rapaport - Psychological Diagnostic Testing (1946)
– clinical applications of 8 tests including the Rorschach
 Roy Schafer (1954)
– Psychoanalytic Interpretation in Rorschach Testing
– content analysis
 John Exner (1995-2003)
– Most extensive and well researched scoring system
Nature of the Rorschach
 How they perceive their environment
 How they process information
 How they prefer to cope with problem
solving situations
 Provides clues to current and characteristic
ways of dealing with life experiences
– Psychological states and traits
Use of Projection
 “Tendency of people to be influenced by
their needs, interests and overall
psychological organization in the cognitive
translation or interpretation of perceptual
inputs whenever the stimulus field includes
ambiguity”
– projective hypothesis (Frank, 1939)
– “projective methods”
Rorschach: Assumptions
 Stimuli from the environment are organized by person’s
needs, motives, conflicts and by certain “perceptual sets”
 These needs become exaggerated when subjects are
confronted with ambiguous stimuli
 These responses are representative of how individuals
confront other ambiguous situations
 Responses are scored along three categories:
– location
– determinants
– content
Exner
 Began collection of broad normative
database
 Integrated system of scoring and
interpretation
 Scoring category included only if showed
.85 agreement
 The Rorschach: A Comprehensive System
Reliability
– Excellent interscorer reliabilities .82 - .97 for
scoring categories
– Test-retest 1 year interval (nonpatient)- .26 to
.92
 worse for children
– Ratios and percentages show higher test-retest
stability
Validity
 Primary focus is to discriminate among
different clinical populations
– example - schizophrenics show poor-quality
responses
 Hard to establish because of multiple
scoring categories and formulas
 Meta-analysis show validity between .40
and .50
Validity (cont.)
 Not effective at assisting with diagnosis
– except; schizophrenia, borderline, bipolar
 May predict variables such as outcome from
psychotherapy, detection of psychosis,
dependent behavior
 Response productivity confounds validity
Assets and Limitations
 Bypasses conscious
resistance
 High resistance to
faking good
 Ease of administration
– 50 minutes
 Questionable reliability
and validity
 Complex scoring systems
 Lack of standardized
administration and scoring
system
 Limited use with children
(esp. under 14)
 Large number of variables
can produce spurious
random significance
Appropriate Uses
 Not a cognitive or neuropsychological
measure
 Not necessarily the best measure for
prediction of behavior
 Best if used as part of a battery
 Best if questions concerns a description of
psychological operations, needs, styles,
habits
Scoring
Summary

The nine questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
What is the location?
What is the developmental quality
What are the determinants?
What is the form quality?
Is there a pair?
What are the contents?
Is it a popular?
Should there be a Z score?
Are there any special scores?
Interpretation:
The Structural Summary

1.
2.
3.
Three steps:
Listing the sequence of codes or scores
Recording frequencies for each variable
Performing various calculations required to
obtain the ratios, percentages and derived
scores
Other Interpretive Questions
 What is the quality of the person’s self-focus?
 With what frequency and efficiency does the
person try to organize his/her environment?
 With what balance and passivity does the
person interact with his/her environment?
 How will the person respond to the affective
stimuli of his/her world?
 Is the person likely to be schizophrenic?
 Is the person suicidal?