Gender, Age and Socioeconomic Differences in Rorschach Thematic Content Scales

Abstract

Rorschach content analysis has been and continues to be a very controversial subject. Weiner (1977) has pointed out that Rorschach content interpretations are subjected to error at each step in the inferential process. Lerner (1991) has commented that there is no area of Rorschach analysis more misused and more underused than content. Aronow and Reznikoff (1976) have argued that it will be content interpretation that fulfills the promise of the Rorschach test as a significant and valid assessment instrument. Whatever the importance or limits assigned to content analysis, the different authors agree that Rorschach clinicians rely very much on content in interpreting the test.Among the nontraditional uses of content indicators (Haley, Draguns, & Phillips, 1967), scales to evaluate psychological variables are again becoming veiy popular. The type of contents studied, which traditionally have been associated with such variables as anxiety, hostility, or dependency, has recently been extended to include applications of the Rorschach test in studying object relations theories.Normative and psychosocial considerations combine to warrant the type of research with Rorschach thematic content scales that we report in this paper. On the one hand, progress in research with these variables requires the collection of normative data; there is a notable dearth of normative data bearing content scales (Aronow & Reznikoff, 1976), in contrast to the extensive normative data that are available on Rorschach structural variables (Exner, 1986). On the other hand, we are interested in learning the consequences for Rorschach interpretation, if any, of the postulate that personality is not only resident in the person. It has been claimed diat the assumption that persons are self-contained individuals 68 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

The Evolution of Some Rorschach Variables in Portuguese Children

“…This makes the Pure F responses dominant over the remaining determinants, both in the children and adult groups we examined. We could find the same trend in several other Rorschach studies (Alvarez, Baeza, Campo, Garcia et al, 1993; Ephraim, Riquelme, & Occupati, 1993; Mattlar, Carlsson, Forsander, Norrlund et al, 1993; Pires, 1993; Sendin, 1987).…”

The Association of Gender, Ethnicity, Age, and Education With Rorschach Scores

“…Milner and Moses (1974), for example, reported that when both examiner and respondent are male, the number of sexual content responses was significantly higher than with any other gender combination. Ephraim, Occupati, Riquelme, and Gonzalez (1993) reported a number of significant content differences by gender when they investigated normative Rorschach data from 216 Venezuelan records. However, it was not clear how many statistical analyses were examined in the study and thus whether some of the findings might have been due to chance.…”

Rorschach Research and the Psychodiagnosis of Antisocial and Psychopathic Personalities

“…This led to the development (Gacono, 1988, 1990; Meloy, 1988) and refinement of additional categories for coding aggression: namely, Aggressive Content (AgC) , Aggressive Potential (AgPot) , Aggressive Past (AgPast) , and Sado-Masochism (SM) . Several studies subsequently demonstrated reliability and suggested concurrent validity for these additional aggression scores (Gacono, 1990; Riquelme, Occupati, & Gonzales, 1991; Meloy & Gacono, 1992; Margolis, 1992; Ephriam, Occupati, Riquelme, & Gonzales, 1993; also see Gacono & Meloy, 1994, Chapter 8).…”