Thematic perception test

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The thematic apprehension test (also: thematic apperception test ), abbreviated to TAT in the specialist literature , is a projective test developed in 1935 by Henry A. Murray and Christiana D. Morgan , which is used as a personality test or, in motivational psychology , to measure motives .

In the meantime there are some newer modifications in which other images are used as well as special evaluation methods. Further developments are carried out by:

In the German-speaking area, the TAT was made known through the handbook published by Wilhelm Revers . Extensive empirical findings and a new version of the TAT are presented by Revers and Allesch (TGT- (S) 1985). Furthermore, the operant multi-motive test Osnabrück was developed.

Further attempts at operationalization are:

  • SCORs (Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale) from Westen (1991)
  • SCORS-Q (Method with Q-Sort for Projective Stories) by Westen (1995)

Test material

Test material from Henry A. Murray

In the psycho- diagnostic procedure, inspired by psychoanalysis , the test person is presented with black and white picture panels, which mostly show people in everyday situations. There are a total of 31 cards, of which a maximum of 20 are presented in 2 sessions. On the back the cards are numbered in the order to be presented. Some also have letters indicating which group of people they are intended for. There are the following groups:

  • B- (Boys), meaning boys
  • G- (Girls), i.e. girls
  • M- (Males), meaning men over 14 years of age
  • F- (Females), meaning women over 14 years of age

Thus, 10 of the remaining 20 panels are shown to the test person in the first session. In the second session the remaining 10, although these, as Murray (1943) writes, are intentionally more unusual, dramatic and bizarre. In addition, panel 16 is completely white.

Newer test material

In a now common variation, only the first 10 panels and panel No. 16 (white) are shown. Depending on the question, individual panels from the second half series are added. The choice depends on the thematic valence.

Testing

According to Murray (1943), in the first session the test person should be asked to tell a story, as dramatically as he can, about each of the 10 panels that are shown to him one after the other. He should tell the following:

  • What led to the situation shown?
  • What is happening now
  • What do people feel and think?
  • What is the end of the story?

There are 50 minutes for the 10 boards. So you have about 5 minutes for each picture.

In a second session, as in the first session, the test person should tell stories about another 10 panels. The instruction can be a little shorter. However, the test person should not be told in the first session that he should tell stories again in the second, otherwise he might collect stories from books or films. There should be at least one day between the first and second session.

In addition, a subsequent interview should be conducted in order to get to know the biographical background to the stories, which is important for the interpretation. This interview can be held immediately afterwards or postponed for a few days.

evaluation

Analysis according to Henry A. Murray

From the content of the stories, the examiner draws conclusions about the internal experience and personal perception of the test person . The evaluation is carried out either using a counting mechanism according to relatively objective criteria - also computer-supported - or through an intuitive, holistic view.

In the manual of the test by Murray (1943) the author makes suggestions for the evaluation of each individual story:

  1. Determine who the story's literary hero is.
  2. Determine what motives, aspirations and feelings the hero has, in other words "needs".
  3. Find out what influence the hero's environment has, say "presses".
  4. Determine the outcome of the story.
  5. Determine which topic forms the “need” - “press” combination in connection with the outcome.
  6. Determine what interests and feelings the narrator is expressing.

It is also important for the evaluation to include the biographical data that was collected in the subsequent interview.

Newer evaluation methods

In the 1980s a different, descriptive evaluation scheme was developed at the Psychological Institute II of the University of Cologne. Werner Seifert developed an evaluation scheme that contains the following four parameters:

  1. Complaints: What problem does the story describe?
  2. Lived methods: Which tactics / strategy (“method”) is evident in the story?
  3. Construction problem: The reconstruction of the psychic principle behind the story, e.g. B. Ambivalence, getting rid of old rules etc.
  4. Concrete action: does the story contain concrete action at all, possibly solutions?

The tabular logging provides an overview of the test person's characteristic life and coping patterns.

Test quality criteria

Since the classic version of the TAT according to Henry A. Murray does not produce any numbers, i.e. it is not a measurement , no test quality criteria can be calculated for this. All numbers about test quality criteria therefore relate to various later developed methods that try to convert the linguistic statements into numbers. In some cases, these methods are even based on methods that use other images or capture other constructs of content .

Reliability

Murray also writes: “Seeing that the TAT responses reflect the fleeting mood as well as the present life situation of the subject, we should not expect the repeat reliability of the test to be high, even though the bulk of the content objectifies tendencies and traits that are relatively constant. Data on this point are lacking. ”If, as Murray writes, the TAT records a construct that changes significantly over time, it is clear that the retest reliability must be low if it validly records this construct. More recent results (cf. Schultheiss & Pang, 2005), however, show that the motifs recorded by the TAT / PSE are sufficiently stable even over decades. The problem of retest reliability may thus arise in particular through variations in the instruction to invent a story that is as creative as possible (Lundy, 1986). Furthermore, the low retest reliability could be due to the fact that the participants were asked to invent imaginative, original stories. Follow-up tests are therefore unlikely to provide any agreement. This thesis is supported by the fact that the retest reliability increases as soon as the test persons are informed that they are allowed to tell similar stories in the second test as in the first participation (Winter 1996). The poor internal consistency is attributed to two causes:

  • Motivational processes show a sequential dynamic, ie needs decrease for some time after they have been satisfied. The likelihood that a subject will write a performance-related story is lower if they have just written one.
  • Cognitive processes show a general tendency to avoid repetition (negative recency effect , known from memory and attention research)

The main problem of reliability, however, is internal consistency: it is usually in an unacceptable, even negative, range and is inversely related to validity (Reumann, 1982). A possible explanation for this finding may be that the TAT measures implicit motives, thus drive-equivalent constructs. For example, if a motif is strongly stimulated in the first picture, this motif is lower in the second picture (Atkinson & Birch, 1970). Psychometric research has been dealing with this problem of measuring reliability for years. For example, Blankenship et al. (2006) attempted to solve this problem by calculating the reliability using the Rasch model. However, this approach does not do justice to the theoretical principles of the TAT in terms of content. Lang (2014) summarized the attempts to solve this problem by various researchers in the journal Psychological Review and came to the conclusion that the currently only fruitful approach is the method of Gruber and Kreuzpointner (2013), which does not use the image values ​​as the basis of the reliability measurement, but use the characteristic values ​​determined via the categories. The TAT achieved values ​​of .79 (fear of failure) and .84 (hope for success) for internal consistency, which can be considered satisfactory for a personality test.

validity

The following important information is missing from this article or section:
* It would be interesting to add the TAT evaluation method to which the criticism relates.
  • It is also interesting which form has proven itself in science, which test batteries show a connection and which source the information comes from.
  • I have moved the paragraph on reliability (retest reliability) up (reliability), where the content is more appropriate and added a few sources below.
Help Wikipedia by researching and pasting it .

In general, the criticisms of the TAT relate primarily to the quality criterion of reliability. From this z. Some conclusions were drawn that the procedure was also not very valid. Against this criticism, it is argued that those test quality criteria are not suitable for assessing the validity of the TAT. In empirical research, the TAT has proven itself over decades. Within test batteries, the knowledge gained through the procedure is usually confirmed and supported by the other tests. Guido Breidebach (2012) was also able to confirm the validity of the method in vocational school students in his dissertation "Educational disadvantage: Why some can't and others don't want".

See also

literature

  • JW Atkinson, D. Birch: The dynamics of action. Wiley, New York 1970.
  • Guido Breidebach: educational disadvantage . Dr Kovac Verlag, Hamburg 2012.
  • V. Blankenship, CM Vega, E. Ramos, K. Romero, K. Warren et al .: Using the multifaceted Rasch model to improve the TAT / PSE measure of need for achievement. In: Journal of Personal Assessment. 86 (1), 2006, pp. 100-114.
  • N. Gruber, L. Kreuzpointner: Measuring the reliability of picture story exercises like the TAT. In: Plos ONE. 8 (11), 2013, p. E79450. doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0079450
  • Jutta and Heinz Heckhausen: Motivation and Action . Heidelberg 2006.
  • H. Hörmann: Theoretical foundations of the projective method. In: C. Graumann et al. (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Psychology. Hogrefe, Göttingen 1982, pp. 173-211.
  • JB Lang: A dynamic Thurstonian item response theory of motive expression in the picture story exercise: Solving the internal consistency paradox of the PSE. In: Psychological Review. 121 (3), 2014, pp. 481-500.
  • AC Lundy: The Reliability of the Thematic Apperception Test. In: Journal of Personal Assessment. 49, 1985, pp. 141-145.
  • Henry A. Murray: Thematic Apperception Test. Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1943.
  • Wilhelm Josef Revers: The thematic apperception test. Huber, Bern 1958.
  • Wilhelm J. Revers, Christian G. Allesch: Handbook for the thematic design test (Salzburg). Beltz, Weinheim 1985, ISBN 3-407-86210-5 .
  • D. Reumann: Ipsative behavioral variability and the quality of thematic apperceptive measurement of the achievement motive. In: Journal of Personal and Social Psychology. 43 (5), 1982, pp. 1098-1110.
  • Werner Seifert: The character and its stories . Munich 1984.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ D. West: Social cognition and object relations. In: Psychological Bulletin. 109, 1991, pp. 429-455.
  2. ↑ D. Westen: Revision of Social Cognition and Objects Relations Scale: Q-Sort for projective stories (SCORS-Q). Unpublished manuscript, Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA 1995.
  3. ↑ Book Reviews. Practice of child psychology and child psychiatry. 34 (1985) 1, p. 26 ( PDF download )
  4. ^ Henry A. Murray: Thematic Apperception Test . Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1943, p. 21.
  5. ↑ N. Gruber, L. Kreuzpointner: Measuring the reliability of picture story exercises like the TAT. In: Plos ONE. 8 (11), 2013, p. E79450. doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0079450
  6. ^ SO Lilienfeld, JM Wood, HN Garb: The scientific status of projective techniques. In: Psychological science in the public interest. 1 (2), 2000, pp. 27-66.
  7. ^ S. Hibbard: A Critique of Lilienfeld et al.'s (2000) "The Scientific Status of Projective Techniques In: Journal of Personality Assessment. 80 (3), 2003, pp. 260-271.
  8. ^ Guido Breidebach: Educational disadvantage . Dr Kovac Verlag, Hamburg 2012.