The short history of projective techniques

Klopfer, Walter G.

doi:10.1002/1520-6696(197301)9:1<60::aid-jhbs2300090107>3.0.co;2-h

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…The projective test movement in the American social sciences lasted from 1941 to 1968, although it was only occasionally called exactly that (a “movement”) and the dates can be argued (but see mention of “the projective movement” in Klopfer, 1973, p. 60, and “the projective test movement” in Lindzey, 1961, p. 31) 5…”

Section: Projection Projectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Perhaps because the tests so clearly and explicitly offered to do exactly what it was that social scientists needed in order to build an integrative science and a unified system that encompassed not only human behavior but the human psyche— what the individual does not want to tell … and what he himself does not know. The tests “do not ordinarily purport to measure actual behavior or conscious self‐report but rather are intended to measure a level that people ordinarily do not express, which may not be fully conscious,” an adherent explained (Klopfer, 1973, p. 62). They were too convenient by several orders of magnitude to ignore—if they worked.…”

Section: Projection Projectmentioning

confidence: 99%

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X‐rays of inner worlds: The mid‐twentieth‐century American Projective Test Movement

Lemov

2011

J History Behavioral Science

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This essay begins to tell the neglected history of the projective test movement in the U.S. behavioral sciences from approximately 1941 to 1968. This cross-disciplinary enterprise attempted to use projective techniques as "X-ray" machines to see into the psyches of subjects tested around the world. The aim was to gather subjective materials en masse, pursuing data on a scope, scale, and manner rarely hazarded before in any science. In particular, the targeted data included the traces of the inner life and elusive aspects of subjective experience including dreams, life stories, and myriad test results from a battery of tests. This essay explores how the movement and the experimental data bank that resulted were unlikely yet telling sites for the practice and pursuit of the Cold War human sciences. To look closely at the encounters that resulted is to show how the most out-of-the-way places and seemingly insignificant moments played a role in heady scientific ambitions and global geopolitical projects. At times, the projective test movement became a mirror of Cold War rationality itself, as tests were employed at the very limits of their possible extension. The essay argues for an off-kilter centrality in the movement itself, shedding light on the would-be unified social sciences after World War II and the "subjective turn" they took.

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Section: Projection Projectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Projection Projectmentioning

confidence: 99%

X‐rays of inner worlds: The mid‐twentieth‐century American Projective Test Movement

Lemov

2011

J History Behavioral Science

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“…Compelled by the American public's fascination with Freudian notions, beginning in the mid-1940s, many academic psychologists co-opted certain psychoanalytic concepts and terms, first by applying experimental methods to determine the validity of psychoanalytic ideas (ideas that many psychologists assumed to be unsound), and then, ultimately, by translating the ideas into behaviorist language (Hornstein, 1992). But experimentalists' resistance notwithstanding, increasing numbers of psychologists became enamored with Freudian theory (e.g., Shakow & Rapaport, 1964) and its application, including the use projective testing (see Klopfer, 1973). The enduring intradisciplinary struggle to negotiate the scientist-practitioner gap can be readily observed within the context of the rapid professionalization of clinical psychology in the wake of WWII.…”

Section: Epistemological Differencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Invoking history to teach about the scientist-practitioner gap.

Cautin¹

2011

History of Psychology

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The scientist-practitioner gap refers to the division between psychologists who believe that clinical practice should be heavily informed by empirical studies and those who believe clinical judgment and intuition should be paramount. Although the gap widened in the late 1980s and early 1990s, owing to the recovered memory controversy, the intradisciplinary schism between scientists and practitioners significantly predates this particular debate. Without an appreciation of the historical context of the term's emergence, however, students may come to regard the scientist-practitioner gap as a discrete and recent phenomenon. In this paper, the historical and philosophical roots of the gap are described, and it is argued that an appreciation of the historical circumstances from which the term emerged can enable students to better appreciate the past, present, and future of the discipline.

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“…Coinciding with the disappearance of the auditory inkblot was the rise of the influence of the empirical approach on the projective movement (Klopfer, 1973) and an increasing emphasis on objective personality assessment generally (e.g., Baso & Berg, 1959). Tests like the Holtzman Ink Blots (Holtzman, Thorpe, Swartz, & Herron, 1961), which were more structured and increasingly objectively scored, became popular.…”

Section: The Rise and Demise Of The Auditory Inkblotmentioning

confidence: 99%

B. F. Skinner and the Auditory Inkblot: The Rise and Fall of the Verbal Summator as a Projective Technique.

Rutherford¹

2003

History of Psychology

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Behaviorist B.F. Skinner is not typically associated with the fields of personality assessment or projective testing. However, early in his career Skinner developed an instrument he named the verbal summator, which, at one point, he referred to as a device for "snaring out complexes," much like an auditory analogue of the Rorschach inkblots. Skinner's interest in the projective potential of his technique was relatively short lived, but whereas he used the verbal summator to generate experimental data for his theory of verbal behavior, several other clinicians and researchers exploited this potential and adapted the verbal summator technique for both research and applied purposes. The idea of an auditory inkblot struck many as a useful innovation, and the verbal summator spawned the tautophone test, the auditory apperception test, and the Azzageddi test, among others. This article traces the origin, development, and eventual demise of the verbal summator as an auditory projective technique.

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The short history of projective techniques

Cited by 9 publications

References 19 publications

X‐rays of inner worlds: The mid‐twentieth‐century American Projective Test Movement

X‐rays of inner worlds: The mid‐twentieth‐century American Projective Test Movement

Invoking history to teach about the scientist-practitioner gap.

B. F. Skinner and the Auditory Inkblot: The Rise and Fall of the Verbal Summator as a Projective Technique.

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