Development of a Thematic Apperception Test ({temas}) for urban Hispanic children.

Abstract

This research investigated the psychometric properties of the TEMAS test (acronym for tell me a story), a thematic apperception technique composed of chromatic stimuli picturing Hispanic characters in urban settings. Previous research has demonstrated that Hispanic children are more verbally fluent in telling stories about TEMAS pictures than about the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) and that thematic content is stable over time. The TEMAS test was administered to 73 public school and 210 clinical Puerto Rican children of low socioeconomic status in grades K-6. Thematic content of TEMAS stories was scored for nine personality functions (e.g., delay of gratification, reality testing) and descriptive indexes (e.g., verbal fluency, reaction time). Results indicated internal consistency and interrater reliability in scoring TEMAS protocols, and TEMAS indexes significantly discriminated between the public school and clinical samples. In the clinical sample, estimates of concurrent validity ranged from R = .32 to .51 with measures of ego development, trait anxiety, and adaptive behavior. Pretherapy TEMAS profiles predicted 6%-22% of the variance in posttherapy treatment outcomes. These results provide preliminary support for the clinical utility of personality assessment of Hispanic children, who typically are inarticulate in response to traditional projective tests.A prominent issue of widespread debate that have been standardized on white, middlein psychological testing is the validity of class norm groups (Olmedo, 1981; Padilla, evaluating ethnic minorities with instruments 1979). Although some attempts have been made to develop minority-oriented cognitive and personality tests for blacks (Thompson, Portions of this article were presented at the August 1949; Willia ™> 1977), as well as Hispanics 1983 meeting of the American Psychological Association, (Ortiz & Ball, 1977; Struthers & DeAvila, Anaheim, California. 1977), unfortunately such tests have not This research was supported by Grant 1 R01-MH33711 weathered critical psychometric scrutiny from the Center for Minority Group Mental Health (Oakland \QTJ\ Programs (National Institute of Mental Health) and 'V<* KJ <" 1U > ly ' '>• ,,""-Grant 83-0868-00 from the William T. Grant Foundation A decade ago, Padilla and Ruiz S (1973) to G. Costantino and also by Grant 2R01-MH30569-review of minority assessment studies revealed 06A from the Center for Minority Group Mental Health little about testing Hispanics, particularly with

Discriminant Analysis of Clinical Outpatients and Public School Children by TEMAS: A Thematic Apperception Test for Hispanics and Blacks

“…Earlier studies indicated that Hispanic and Black children are more verbally fluent on the TEMAS test than the TAT, but White children show no significant differences (Costantino & Malgad~, 1983;Costantino, Malgady, & Vazquez, 1981), thus setting a potential for valid personality assessment of minority children. Other studies established the reliability of TEMAS, some rudimentary evidence of concurrent validity (correlations with other personality measures), and clinical utility for predicting psychotherapeutic treatment outcomes (Malgady et al, 1984), Results of our study lend further support to the validity of the E M A S test for discriminating between clinical and nonclinical groups of minority children; classification accuracy was 89% for Hispanics and Blacks. However, within the clinical groups, achievement motivation discriminated between different DSM-111 diagnostic categories.…”

“…The pictures are structured to "pull" or elicit themes indicative of nine personality functions: interpersonal relations, aggression, anxiety/depression, achievement motivation, delay of gratification, self-concept, sexual identity, moral judgment, and reality testing. Psychometric studies, documenting interrater and internal consistency reliability and concurrent and predictive validity are reported elsewhere (see Malgady et al, 1984). The purpose of our study was to establish further evidence of the test's clinical utility by artempting to discriminate between children functioning well in school versus children diagnosed according to the Diagnostdc and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 3rd ed.…”

“…The TEMAS test (meaning themes in Spanish) was constructed as a projective technique composed of 23 chromatic pictures depicting Black and Hispanic characters in the minority version and White characters in the nonminority version (Costantino, Malgady, & Rogler, 1988;Malgady, Costantino, & Rogler, 1984). The pictures portray interpersonal situations that require resolution of psychological conflict (e.g., stealing vs. helping) in order to elicit stories from children that may reveal the adaptiveness of their personality functioning (Bellak, Hurvich, & Gediman, 1973).…”

The Role of Culture in Altruism: Thailand and the United States

“…The AAT was developed by the first author to measure altruistic attitudes through a projective process (contact the first author for copies). It was modeled after the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), in a similar manner to the thematic TEMAS (tell me a story) method that was developed for use with an urban Hispanic population (Malgady, Constantino, & Rogler, 1984). These authors have shown how such projective test cultural adaptations increase participant responsiveness owing to culturally-relevant stimuli.…”

Imaginary pictures, real life stories: the FotoDialogo method

“…An example of a picture stimuli technique that takes into consideration specific cultural features is the Tell-Me-A-Story (TEMAS), a TAT-like test that comprises chromatic pictures depicting Hispanic/Latino characters interacting in familiar urban settings (Costantino, 1978). Studies conducted with the TEMAS technique demonstrated that Puerto Rican children are significantly more verbally fluent in telling stories about TEMAS pictures than about TAT pictures (Costantino et al, 1981;Costantino & Malgady, 1983;Malgady et al, 1984;Costantino et al, 2001).…”