An experimental investigation of projection as a defense mechanism

Abstract

PROBLEMWhile projection is one of the oldest concepts in psychology, reviews such as those of Campbell et U Z (~) and Murstein et uZ(') reveal that experimental evidence regarding this concept is limited and often of an uncontrolled, anecdotal sort. This concept has high clinical utility which could be increased with controlled empirical information. This study experimentally investigated the defensive aspect of projection with special attention given to its often claimed anxiety-reducing property. METHOD Subjects. Ss were 120 male university students. Prior to the experiment, volunteers rated themselves on six seven-point scales. These scales pertained to arithmetic ability, spelling ability, vocabulary ability and the relationship between these abilities and general mental ability. From these volunteers: 5's were chosen who had described themselves as being better than "fair" in vocabulary and spelling, and who had indicated a belief that these two abilities correlated "moderately well" or more so with general mental ability. Design. The central design was a 2 X 3 factorial design with 3 levels of failure and 2 levels of projection. The specific aim was to experimentally produce and manipulate failure and at the same time encourage one half of the Ss to project their failure (i. e., make it easy for them) while impeding projection in the other half.The failure variable was manipulated by using 3 proportions of unsolvable anagrams. Projection was encouraged by having the High Projection Ss answer 8 questions which asked them to estimate how various groups of individuals might do on the anagram test. I n the Low Projection groups, projection was discouraged by an interpolated task of crossing out vowels in a short paragraph designed to insure equal experimental time for all Ss.It is of course possible that the interpolated task may not effectively impede projection, given the intrapersonal, covert nature of the process. As such, converging operations were set up to ascptain the effectiveness of this manipulation.At the end of the experiment, Ss in the Low Projection grodps were required to search their memory to see whether or not they recalled estimating how other persons might have done on the anagram task. Answers to this question were given on a 6 point scale ranging from "Definitely did not" estimate to "Definitely did" estimate how others might have done. Similarly, ch'ecks were made on the failure manipulation. Prior to debriefing, Ss'were asked to write a short comment on how they thought they performed on the anagram task and what they thought of the experimental tasks in general.Central dependent measures of projection's defensive properties were three different and repeated anxiety scores,.a physiological measure (palmar sweat index), a psychometric measure (7 point rating scale of subjective anxiety feelings) and a projective measure (sentence completions scored for anxiety content). Other dependent measures included the S's estimation of the number of anagrams he successfully unscrambled and a re-est...

Vicarious anxiety: A systematic evaluation of a vicarious threat to self-esteem.

“…This is consistent with the findings of Houston (1971Houston ( , 1973, Houston and Hodges (1970), and Lazarus and Alfert (1964), who reported the advantage of denial in stressful situations and the arousal-reducing qualities of denial and reaction formation (reversals). The present findings are supportive of Bennett and Holmes (1975), who reported a reduction in arousal relating to projection, but are in contrast to Holmes and Houston (1971) and Stevens and Reitz (1970), who did not support the projection/anxiety reduction hypothesis. The reversal defensive mechanisms of the DMI include denial, reaction formation, and negation.…”

Self-serving biases in person perception: A reexamination of projection as a mechanism of defense.

“…No studies, for example, have looked at the self-serving effects of classical projection. Holmes (1978) reviewed six studies (Bennett & Holmes, 1975;Holmes & Houston, 1971;Stevens & Reitz, 1970;Zemore & Greenough, 1973; Burish, Note 2; Hellman & Houston, Note 3) and concluded that "there does not appear to be any consistent or reliable evidence that projection of undesirable traits reduces stress as assessed by self-report, physiological, or performance measures" (p. 686). I do not believe this conclusion to be justified.…”

Causal projection, similarity projection, and coping with threat to self‐esteem1

“…Although a substantial amount of research suggests that people do in fact employ similarity projection (cf. Holmes, 1968), relatively few experiments have been carried out to answer the question of whether similarity projection reduces stress, and the work which has been done (Bennett & Holmes, 1975;Halpern, 1977;Holmes & Houston, 1971;Stevens & Reitz, 1970) has produced mixed results, frequently within the same experiment. Again, it may be that previous research has failed to provide the conditions under which projection is most likely to exert a stress-reducing effect.…”