CHAPTER 226 Personality Assessment We began Chapter 7 by describing various ways of defining intelligence. We saw that intelligence was surprisingly difficult to define. Well if you though intelligence was diffi- cult, try taking a stab at personality. Once again, the erm is one with which we are all famil- iar, but when used in a scientific or professional context, proves challenging to delineate, In everyday parlance, personality is usually used in onc of two ways (Hall & Lindzey, 1978). The first is evaluative. “He's got lot of personality” usually means the person i inter- esting, fun to be with, and has good social skills. “She has no personality” means the oppo- site. When used this way, the quantity of personality a person is thought to have refers to his or her level of social adoitness and likableness. In a similar fashion when we say, “Tom has a great personality” we are evaluating Tom's social skills (as opposed to his physical appearance) positively. The second way the term frequently is used by the general public is to describe a dominant or outstanding feature of another. We might say a person has a “fear- {ul personality” or a “bubbly personality” or a “passive-aggressive personality.” In this use, a salient characteristic that is highly typical of the person is chosen to provide an overall description. In 1937, the well-known psychologist Gordon Allport reviewed the extant literature and distilled over fifty different definitions ofthe term personality, In 1970, Calvin Hall and Gardner Lindzey published an authoritative textbook on personality. Rather than offer a definition of personality, these authors concluded, “itis our eonvietion that no substantive def- inition of personality can be applied with any generality... personality is defined by the particular empirical concepts which are a part of the theory of personality employed by the observer (emphasis in original; Hall & Lindzey, 1970, p. 9, How one understands personality is inextricably tied to one's theorctial orientation, For the psychoanalyst, personality refers to the dynamic struggle between drives to satisfy "unconscious, usually sexual, desires and the needs to function inthe real world. For psychol- ogists who subscribe to a humanist-cxistentialist viewpoint, one’s personality is one’s phe- rnomenal experience ofthe world at the moment including the knowledge of one's mortality. Behaviorally oriented psychologists have traditionally eschewed the term personality in favor ofthe view that individual differences in behavior are better understood in terms of reinforcement history and skill variability. Considering personality from these different viewpoints ilustrates the futility of a single definition For clinical psychologists the approach onc takes to assessment of personality is also closely ied to one’s theoretical perspective. Psychologists who believe that unconscious con-CHAPTER § / Personality Assessment 227 Acts are important determinants of clients’ emotional and behavioral difficulties will choose assessment instruments they believe assess these unconscious processes. On the other hand, clinical psychologists who are more empirically minded will choose assessment instru- ments where the behavioral and emotional correlates of the scores derived from the m sures are well established One system for organizing different approaches to personality assessment has been 10 distinguish projective from objective methods. Projective methods tend to be less structured and involve a greater degree of judgment in scoring and interpretation, Clients have a fairly large degree of latitude in choosing how to respond, Objective methods, on the other hand, are more highly structured, scoring is objective, and interpretation involves relatively less subjective judgment, Clients have a limited number of choices in how they respond to the test items, In this chapter we will provide an overview of the methods of personality assessment ‘most frequently used by clinical psychologists. Both projective and objective methods will be discussed and evaluated. We will conelude by discussing the role of personality assess- ‘ment in contemporary clinical psychology. Projective Methods ‘Three children are lying on the ground in an open field looking up at puffy white clouds in the sky. The first child says that she can see the image of a ballerina pirouetting through the ai. The second child looks atthe same sky and sees the face of an old man scowling down at him, The third child sees two rams butting heads. What do their different perceptions ofthe clouds tell us about these children? Does what each child see in the clouds provide us with clues about their self-esteem, relationships, impulse control, moral development, mood state, or need for achievement? Or is it more likely that what each child chose to say about the clouds hhas more to do with what they had seen on television recently, whether they had played this {game before, or what they thought might sound “coo!” to ther friends. ‘The idea that what people perceive when they respond to some ambiguous stimulus provides important information about their personality is the basic assumption underlying projective methods of psychological assessment. Consequently, psychologists have devel- ‘oped a variety of methods for systematically assessing the ways in which people respond toa variety of ambiguous stimuli by using inkblots, pictures, sentence stems, drawings, and verbal instructions, These varied projective methods have the following characteristic in 1. All projective methods share the assumption that when people try to make sense of some vague or ambiguous stimulus, their understanding ofthat stimulus is determined by their feelings, experiences, needs, and thought processes, This assumption has been called the projective hypothesis. Put simply, the projective hypothesis assumes that a person will project something important about him or herself onto an ambiguous stimulus. Lawrence Frank (1939) is usually credited as the frst to use the erm “projective methods.” Frank com- pared the projective methods to an X-ray. In both technologies stimulus is “passed through” an individual yielding a picture of the internal structure that can only be interpreted by a trained professional.228 PART TWO / Psychological Assessment 2, Projective methods are relatively unstructured. The tasks allow for an almost inex- hhaustible variety of possible responses. In order to avoid contaminating a person’s responses, instructions for projective methods are often general and can be vague themselves (e.g, “Tell, ‘me what you see.” “There are no right or wrong answers.”) 3. ‘The purpose and procedures used in projective tests are usually disguised to some degree. The client does not know the way in which their responses will be analyzed and interpreted 4, Projective methods are usually used as a global approach to assess the individ- ual’s entire personality. This is particularly true in a clinical setting where these instruments have been used most often. Typically, the psychologist puts together a comprehensive description of the client's psychological functioning, rather than identify a particular trait, based upon the information gathered through the projective assessment. Proponents of projective methods argue that these techniques are particularly effective, and may be the only means available, for evaluating unconscious elements of the personality. The assumption is thatthe information gathered with the projective test could not be gotten otherwise. Quoting Frank (1939, p. 395), “the most important things about an individual are what he cannot of will not say.” 6. Interpretation of projective tests is usually based upon, or has been strongly influ enced by, psychoanalytic thinking. The relationship between projective methods and the Freudian concept of projection is not straightforward, Projective methods are not procedures for assessing projection. Freud used the term projection to describe a defense mechanism whereby an individual attributes his unacceptable, unconscious thoughts and feelings onto others, Responses to projective stimuli are not necessarily defensive nor unconscious (Zubin, Eron, & Shumer, 1965, cited in Wierzbicki, 1993). Clearly, however, the development of pro- jective techniques in the first half ofthe twentieth century was strongly influenced by the pop- larity of psychoanalysis, The acceptance of psychic determinism and the importance placed upon unconscious processes paved the way for projective testing. 7. In the clinical settings, projective methods are used in an idiographic manner. While normative data are available for some projective tests, these instruments are used (0 develop a model of the personality functioning of the individual. Projective methods were developed in clinical settings, and itis in these settings that they have predominantly been used. As we will see, when these methods have been evaluated as psychometric instruments, often they have been found wanting. Nonetheless, through the decades they have maintained their popularity in clinical settings (Bellack, 1993; Lubin, Larson, & Matarazzo, 1984; Piotrowski, Sherry, & Kelly, 1985; Watkins, 1991) and these instruments continue to be taught in many APA-aceredited doctoral training programs in clinical psychology (Piotrowski ct al., 1985). We will discuss the continued popularity of projective methods later in this chapter. At this point, we turn our attention to the most pop- ular of all the projective methods, the Rorschach, Rorschach History. Hermann Rorschach was a Swiss psychiatrist who had a strong interest in art and drawing. His father had been an art teacher and Rorschach published papers on the analysisCHAPTER & / Personality Assessment 29 of psychiatric patients’ artwork early in his career. Three significant influences upon Rorschach’s thinking and professional work can be identified, First, Rorschach worked under the supervision of Eugen Bleuler, who published his work on dementia praecox, coining the term schizophrenia, in 1911 while Rorschach was doing his psychiatric residency. Second, like most European psychiatrists of his day, Rorschach was influenced by psychoanalytic thinking and employed psychoanalytic techniques in his work with some patients. Third, Rorschach was influenced by the writings of Carl Jung, particularly Jung's writings about the use of word-association tasks as a means of exploring unconscious material. In 1921, Rorschach published Psychodiagnostik, in which he described a method of diagnosing, patients, and describing characteristics oftheir personality, based upon their responses to a set of ten inkblots (see Box 8.1 for a brief history of the Rorschach cards). The book contained Rorschach’s observations about the responses of hundreds of patients and nonpatients to his inkblots. Among his many observations, Rorschach noted that the schizophrenic group responded much differently than the other groups. Thus the seeds of the Rorschach technique sox 8.1 ‘The Story of Rorschach’s Ten Inkblots ‘The ten inkblots that appeared in Rorschach’s book are the same ten blots that have been used over the eighty: plus years since its publication, While systems for administering, scoring, and interpeeting the Rorschach have varied, the blots themselves have not been altered through the ages. The story of how the famous ten inkblots came into existence make an intresting historical footnote (Exner, 1986) Rorschach originally used about forty inkblots in his research, When he first organized is ‘materials for publication, he based the manuscript on the fifteen blots he used most ofl Rorschach's manuscript was rejected by several publishers. His one offer for publication came with the proviso that be limit the number of inkblols to six in order to reduce the cost of publication, Rorschach refused, He did revise the manuscript, however, and tied with another round of pub- lishers. Rorschach’s friend Walter Morganthaler championed Rorschach’s book and was able to ‘oblain a contract with a small publisher, the House of Bircher in Bern. Once again, the cost of repro- ducing the inkblots was an issue forthe publisher, Rorschach had to revise his manuseript again, this time describing and including replications of only the ten inkblots he used most frequently. Lite did the publishers know what a significant impact their refusal to publish fifteen inkblots would have ‘upon the future of psychological assessment In alton to reducing the number of Rorschach inkblots, the House of Bircher changed the testin ways they could never have Forescen in 1921, Reproduction ofthe inkbiots altered the stimuli in three ways, The reproduced inkblots were smaller than the original, and some of the colors were slightly different.’The most important alteration tothe test stimuli, however, was the introduction of shading in the reproduced figures. Rorschach's original inkblots were all solid colors; there were no variations in shading. When the blots were reproduced for publication, there were marked differences inthe degree to which the ink saturated the plates. As a consequence, the figures that appeared in Psy- ‘hodiagnostik were very diferent than the blots studied by Rorschach. As we describe elsewhere in this chapter, how examinees use the variations in shading to form percepts is believed to reveal important information about their personality. The House of Biche’ failure to accurately eproduce the Rorschach figures esulted in a whole new dimension of test interpretation.230 PART TWO / Psychological Assessment asa diagnostic instrument were sewn. Unfortunately, Rorschach died of complications of appendicitis in 1922, one year after the publication of his famous book. He was 37 years old, ‘There was not a strong response to Rorschach's book during the short period of time between its publication and his untimely death. Very few copies of the manuscript sold and the original publisher declared bankruptcy not long after Rorschach’s death (although Rorschach’s book was not t0 blame). His work might have had litle impact upon psychia- tay or clinical psychology had it not been for three of Rorschach’s close friends: Walter Morganthaler, Emil Oberholzer, and Georgi Roemer (Erdberg & Exner, 1984). These three ‘men continued to teach Rorschach's method and to keep the Rorschach alive. Bom in Europe, the Rorschach grew to prominence in the field of psychological assessment in the United States, Five psychologists with very distinct background became interested in the Rorschach and promoted its development in the United States: Samuel Beck, Bruno Klopfer, Zygmut Piotrowski, Marguerite Hertz, and David Rapaport (Erdberg & Exner, 1984). Although beyond the scope of this chapter, the story of how each of these psychologists got involved with the Rorschach and their influences upon the test's devel- ‘opment make for fascinating reading. The interested reader should sce Chapter | of The Rorschach: A Comprehensive System by John Exner (1986) for a full account, Although Beck, Klopfer, Piotrowski, Hertz, and Rapaport shared ideas about the Rorschach, it would inaccurate to say that they worked together to popularize the test. The fact ‘was that each had his or her own ideas about the test and their disagreements about the instru ‘ment were frequently aired in professional jounals—often times in hostile exchanges. One consequence of this rancor was that five different systems for administering, scoring, and interpreting the Rorschach were popularized in the United States. While these approaches shared common features (e.g., each used the same ten inkblots; administration always. included a free-association phase followed by inquiry about the aspects ofthe blot used in the response), they were clearly five distinct Rorschach systems (Erdberg & Exner, 1984; Exner, 1986). The two most popular systems were those developed by Beck and Klopfer. Beck, ‘whose training was in experimental psychology, insisted upon the development of extensive normative data and rigorous validation of each interpretive element. Klopfer, on the other hhand, who was influenced by phenomenological thinking, encouraged examiners to use their ‘own experience and judgment in coding and interpreting material (Erdberg & Exner, 1984), The various approaches to the Rorschach can be organized into two types (Weiner, 1977). First, the test can be viewed as a perceptual-cognitive task. Here the basic task is to organize an ambiguous stimulus into something that is meaningful. How a person goes about this task is thought to represent how he or she would behave in situations that share some of the same elements with the testing situation. For example, the person who focuses upon minute details ofthe test stimuli and is not able to organize these details into a mean- ingful integrated percept would be expected to deal with real-life situations in a similar ‘manner. One might say that such a person has a difficult time seeing the forest because all the trees demand his or her attention. In this approach to Rorschach interpretation itis not the content of the responses so much as the structure that is important, Emphasis is placed ‘upon how color, form, and location determine the choice of responses. ‘The second type of approach to interpretation sees the central value of the Rorschach ‘method as being a “stimulus to fantasy” (Erdberg & Exner, 1984), This type of interpretive strategy places greater emphasis upon the content of responses. The person's responses areCHAPTER § / Personality Assessment 231, viewed as symbolic representations of internal personality dynamics. An example may help toillustzate this approach to interpretation. Very early in one of the authors’ graduate training. hhe administered the Rorschach to a 17-year-old client, In response to the frst card, the young, ‘man stated, “It looks like a bat.” This is a common response to Card I of the Rorschach, ‘When the examiner asked if the subject saw anything else in the inkblot, there was a long. delay before the young man responded, “A hollow log.” Approaching the task as a stimu lus to fantasy, the author's supervisor saw great significance in the second response. By responding “A hollow log,” the examinee was communicating something important about his self-perception. The supervisor saw the response as the youth’s way of saying, “I don’t know who Tam. Behind my exterior facade there is nothing there. I am hollow.” Although very popular among clinicians, early evaluation of the Rorschach from a psychometric perspective found the instrument wanting (e.g., Cronbach, 1949; Eysenck, 1952; Holzberg, 1960; Jensen, 1959; Windle, 1952; Zubin, 1954), One of the difficulties in cvaluating the Rorschach lay in the variability across systems. There really was no Rorschach, test, per se, Rather, there were many Rorschach methods. There were many other difficul- ties with the test asa psychometric instrument as well. The following problems have proven particularly strong impediments to establishing the reliability and validity of the instrument: variability inthe total number of responses, the influence of examiner effects, the individ- ual significance attributed to specific blots, and the interdependence of scores. In a 1952 review of the literature on the reliability of the Rorschach, Hans Eysenck drew the following. conclusion: “The literature here is in such a confused state that itis almost impossible t0 derive any agreed conclusions” (p. 164). Defenders of the Rorschach have sometimes argued that in the hands of an expert, the instrument has great validity. They emphasize the need to evaluate the examiner and the instrument together. Holzberg (1960, p. 374), for example, argued, “the Rorschach method ‘cannot be isolated from the interpreter, the Rorschach and the psychologist being one inte: gral methodology.” Arguments such as these cannot be defended from a scientific perspec tive because to do so would allow one to dismiss evidence contradictory to one’s view. [Negative findings about the validity of the Rorschach are assumed to be due poor examiners; examiners who produce positive findings are assumed to be expert. By the 1960s the Rorschach had a poor reputation as psychometric instrument Among the many problems with the Rorschach, those most frequently cited included: “(a) lack of standardized rules for administration and scoring, (b) poor interrater reliability, (c) lack of adequate norms, (d) unknown or weak validity, and (d) susceptibility to situational influences” (Wood, Nezworski, & Stejskal, 1996, p. 3). In contrast, the instrument contin: ued to be extremely popular among clinicians, the majority of whom simply ignored formal scoring systems or developed their own idiosyncratic methods of interpreting their findings that borrowed from one or more interpretive systems (Exner & Exner, 1972). Survey studies found that less than 20 percent of clinicians faithfully adhered to a single scoring/interpretive system (Exner, 1986). Fora discipline that emphasized the relationship between science and practice, the situation was an embarrassment, Contemporary Rorschach Use. Despite its many detractors, the Rorschach has not gone away. It was has been called “a test that has repeatedly outlived its obituaries” (Peterson, 1994, p. 396). Contemporary efforts to understand and use the Rorschach in a scientifically232 PART TWO / Psychological Assessment defensible manner were spearheaded by John Exner. Exner established the Rorschach Research Foundation in 1968, whose original goal was to study the strengths and weaknesses ‘of each of the five major Rorschach systems. By the early 1970s the thrust of the founda- tion's efforts had shifted to the development of a new system that integrated those features of the existing systems that had empirical support and to establish an empirical foundation for aspects of the Rorschach that appear to have the greatest clinical wility. For the past thirty-plus years, Exner’s foundation (known by most people as Rorschach Workshops) has worked to develop a psychometrically sound Rorschach system (Exner, 1991, 1993; Exner & Weiner, 1994). Exner's “Comprehensive System’ for the Rorschach combined those elements of the earlier Rorschach systems that had the most empirical support. Those components of the other systems with the best reliability and validity data were included. Exner standardized administration, scoring, and interpretation, basing his system on empirical comparisons among the various practices. Exner's system is essentially atheoretical. Its not based upon a particular theory of personality or psychopathology. Rather, the system is based upon what ‘works, For example, if a certain combination of scores has been shown to reliably distinguish people with schizophrenia from those without the disorder, then this set of scores was ineluded in the Comprehensive System. ‘The Exner system places greater emphasis upon the structure of responses rather than their content, Each response is coded on several scoring categories (see below). The “struc- ‘ural summary” is a compilation of score totals, ratios, among various scoring categories, and percentages. In all over 50 percentages, ratios, and scores are included in the structural sum- ‘mary, Interpretation is based upon this summary record. Some inferences are based upon a single scoring category, others are based upon a combination of two or more findings. More complex inferences are based upon complex groupings of various score summaries. For example, the Egocentricity Index is derived by adding the number of “pair” responses (e.g, ‘wo teddy bears, two rocket ships) to the number of reflection responses (e.g., a dog look- ing in a mirror, a mountain reflected in a lake) times three and divided by the total number of responses. The Exner system produces scores on several indices such as this (e.g., Schiz~ “ophrenia Index, Depression Index, and Suicide Constellation) and recommends cut-off scores for each, which allows for inferences about the likelihood that certain conditions or disor- ders are present. Exner’s Comprehensive System has continued to evolve over the past twenty-five plus years since the publication of the first edition of The Rorschach: A Comprehensive System (Exner, 1974). Exner and his colleagues have collected a great deal of normative data on normal children, adolescents, and adults as well as people suffering with a variety of mental health conditions. They have generated a great deal of data supporting the inter~ rater reliability of the scoring method and the validity of various inferences drawn from test scores. Exner Workshops regularly sponsors workshops and seminars in which clinicians. and researchers are trained to administer and score the Rorschach according to Exner's, well-worked-out system. Adequately trained testers have been shown to have high rates of interscorer reliability, The Exner system has inereased in popularity to the point at which ‘now itis considered by most fo be the standard approach to Rorschach assessment. This has resulted in improved quality and quantity of Rorschach research (e.2., Masling, 1997; Shontz & Green, 1992; Weiner, 1996, 1997),CHAPTER § / Personality Assessment 233 Exner’ Comprehensive System clearly marks an advance above the first generation of Rorschach methods. However, the system is not escaped criticism. Some take issue with the atheoretical approach (e.g, Lerner, 1991). Others continue to war that even Exner's approach to the Rorschach falls short on psychometric grounds and question the data that appear to support Exner's approach to the Rorschach (e-., Garb, Florio, & Grove, 1998; ‘Wood et al, 19%6a, 19966). Commonly cited criticisms ofthe Exner system include the fol lowing: (1) Interscorer relibility estimates reported by Exner are inflated since they are based upon statistical procedures that take advantage of chance agreements (see Wood et al, 1996a); (2) Exner’s books (¢., Exner, 1991, 1993; Exner & Weiner, 1994) selectively review literature on the validity ofthe various scores, ratios, and percentages included in the structural summary, ignoring studies published by other researchers that yield contradictory findings; (3) the data supporting the reliability of the Exner scoring system are based upon carefully trained raters who work for Rorschach Workshops; field trials that examine the reliability of clinicians inthe field are few and far between; (4) administration, scoring, and interpretation of the Rorschach using the Comprehensive System is extremely time-con- suming raising questions about cost-benefit analysis and incremental validity. For example, there are much easier ways of assessing whether a clients depressed compared tothe client and professional time needed to derive a score on Exner's Depression Index; (5) interpre- {ations ofthe meaning of various Rorschach scores often have not been subject to cross- validation; (6) most ofthe rescarch supporting the Comprehensive System has been produced by Exner and his colleagues atthe Rorschach Workshops. Many of the studies cited by Exner are unpublished. A significant portion ofthe escarch supporting the Exner system, therefore, has not been reviewed by other scientists. Inthe science of psychology, research is typically reviewed by other experts inthe field before publication in what are sometimes referred to as “peer-reviewed!” journals. Independent scholars have not had the opportunity to scrutinize much of the research basis for the Comprchensive system. While Exner isthe best-known contemporary approach to the Rorschach, itis not the only game in town. Aronow and his colleagues (1994, 1995) have developed an approach in which the Rorschach is used as standardized clinical interview. Interpretation focuses ‘upon the content of the responses rather than perceptual ot structural determinants. The authors do not recommend their approach for research purposes but suggest this use of the Rorschach in clinical settings in which clinicians are interested in developing an idiographic "understanding of their client, Lemer (1991) has developed an approach to the Rorschach that is explicitly tied to psychoanalytic theory. As might be expected from « psychoanalytic approach, Lemer views the fundamental value ofthe Rorschach as an instrument for access ing the unconscious working of clients’ minds Administration, Scoring, and Interpretation. ‘The following overview of Rorschach ‘administration and scoring is based upon the Exner method. For a discussion of alternative ‘methods, the interested reader might see Aronow, Reznikoff, and Moreland (1994) or Lerner 2991) ‘There are two phases to the administration of the Rorschach: the Response (or Asso- ciation) phase and the Inquiry Phase. The Response phase starts when the subject is presented ‘with the first inkblot and the question “What might this be?” The examiner writes down the subject's responses verbatim. Questions from the subject about the acceptable responses or234 PART TWO / Psychological Assessment procedures are responded to nondirectively c.g., Subject: “Can T tum it?” Examiner: “I's upto you.” S:“Do you want me to show you where I see it?” E: “Ifyou lke."). The Response phase proceeds through all ten inkblots in the same manne—the examiner hands each card to the subject and records everything that he or she says. Subjects are not limited to the ‘numberof responses they give to each blot. Exner recommends taking the card from the sub {ect ater six responses to the ftsteard and after five response to any of the next nine eards ‘The Inquiry phase begins after the subject has had a chance to respond to all ten Rorschach cards. The purpose of the Inquiry phase is for the examiner to gather enough information so that all responses can be scored adequately. Inthe Inquiry phase, the exam- iner tries to find out what it was about each card that led the subject to give the response. Te instructions for the Inquiry phase include the following: “I want you to help me see what you sav. I'm going to read what you said, and then I want you to show me where on the biot you saw it and what there is there that makes it Iook like that, so that I can see it 100. 1'd like to see it just lke you did, so help me now." In scoring a Rorschach protocol, the examiner must identify the location on the blot used in creating the response. For example, if the subject uses the entire blot itis scored W (Whole); areas commonly used to form percepts are scored D (Common Detail) and unusual sections ofthe blot are scored Dd (Unusual Detail). Ifthe subject uses the white space it is scored § (White Space Details). In addition to location, responses are scored forthe “deter- ‘minants" used to form the response. Scoring the determinant is extremely important since the totals, percentages, and ratios of various determinant is what appears on the structural summary, which is the bass for Rorschach interpretation. Some of the basic categories of determinants are Form (e.g., Response: “A bat.” Inquiry: “You can see the wings here, the head here and the feet here"), Movement (eg, R: “It looks like two women dancing.” I: “Just the way it looks like they are swirling around” fa human movement response]; R: “The space shuttle blasting off." I: “This looks lke fire coming out ofthe bottom and it looks like itis shooting up inthe aie” [an inanimate movement response}, Color (eg, R: “Blood.” I: “The red look like splattered blood.”), Texture (eR: “A bearskin rug.” I: “This part looks fury."), and Shading (e,, R: “Smoke.” I: “Just the way the shade varies from gray to black”) Interpretation ofthe Rorschach protocol is based upon an analysis ofthe frequency with ‘hich different determinants ae used by the subject to forms responses, the ratio of one type of determinant to another, and the percentage of the total number of responses that used cer- tain determinants. What follows brief sampling of the kinds of interpretations that are ass0- ciated with different types of determinants. The inclusion of some human movement responses in a Rorschach protocol is generally viewed positively. The absence of any such response suggests interpersonal deficits. The quality of the human movement responses is important. Human movement that is frequently agaressive (eg, “Two wartiors trying to stab each other”) i associated with aggressive verbal and nonverbal behavior. How subjects use colori creating their responses is thought to indicate something important about their emo- tional life. Well-formed responses that integrate color into the percept suggest thatthe subject can manage his or her emotional responses effectively (¢., R: “A erab.” I “These look like Jegs and claws and the red reminded me of a erab.”). On the other hand, complete denial of the color in the bots (2. color is never used as a determinant) suggests thatthe subject tends to stile emotional expression, Finally, poorly formed responses that are based upon only the