Good Example Of Projective Notes Argumentative Essay

Introduction

Projective tests are types of personality tests where individuals are expected to offer feedback to ambiguous scenes, images or words. The psychoanalytic school of thought is credited for this type of test in which it proposed that different individuals have different unconscious urges or thoughts. It is through these types of projective tests that people uncover such unconscious desires that tend to be covered and overshadowed by conscious awareness. There is a variety of commonly known projective tests that were derived from Neo-Freudian and Freudian theories (Miller et al., 2012). They have gain maximum support with time and continuous research, and they include among others, the Roscharch Inkblot Test, Iowa Picture Interpretation Test and the Thermatic Appreciation Test.

Ambiguous Picture: STIMULUS

Most projective tests use ambiguous pictures. This involves showing the participant an ambiguous image and requesting him or her to give a first response on what comes to his mind upon seeing the picture. The ambiguity of the stimuli is always the key principle to the projective tests (Miller et al., 2012). This is supported by the theory that argues that the conscious mind carefully crafts clearly defined answers upon receiving clearly defined questions. This means that any question or stimulus that is not clearly defined results to unconscious motivations or attitudes by the mind leading to undefined answers.

Merits & Drawbacks of Using Tests Based on Stimuli

Projective tests or tests based on stimuli are regularly used in therapeutic environments. One advantage is that they can be used in such settings by therapists to assist them in knowing qualitative information about the client. Moreover, tests based on stimuli can be used in the form of icebreakers to motivate the client to table issues and emotions and argue them out with the therapist.
Despite having a variety of advantages, projective tests have a number of demerits. One of the limitations is that respondents’ answers can be directly influenced by the test setting/environment or the examiner/therapist’s attitude (Miller et al., 2012). Moreover, interpretation of answers offered by the client can also vary from one therapist to another and hence scoring projective tests is always highly subjective. This in turn results to lack of reliability and credibility as a result of the absence of the grading scales.

Conclusion

Despite the limitations associated with the tests based on stimuli, they are still regularly used. There has been continuous research and improvement in the tests which has seen them improve their degree of reliability and credibility. Clinical psychologists and psychiatrists still rely on these tests heavily arguing that the latest versions of these tests possess high validity and credibility.

References

Miller. L, Lovler. R & Mc Intire. S (2012) Foundations of Psychological Testing: A Practical Approach SAGE Publications