The purpose of this study was to investigate the repeat reliability and internal consistency under short-term conditions of several indices of agression and anxiety as measured by the TAT. In view of the variations in the results reported in the few studies concerned with this problem, a specificity hypothesis was suggested. This hypothesis states that no general evaluation can be made of the temporal and internal stability of the TAT. Such statements probably only have meaning in terms of specific variables. The variables employed in the present study were aggression and anxiety and the results should not be generalized beyond these variables. One group of subjects was given standard TAT instructions at two successive administrations, while a second group was asked to tell a different story to each card. This procedure was designed to control and study the influence of memory effects. It was found that memory effects are very strong, and where the instructions interfere with their operation, repeat reliability coefficients are very low. The TAT cards included two high, two medium and two low aggressive content cards, as determined by a panel of judges and from previous research. The purpose of this part of the study was to determine if the reliability of the test varies with the level of card ambiguity for a given drive. The results did not support the hypothesis that responses to stimuli which are unambiguous for a given drive are more likely to be stable over time than responses made to a relatively ambiguous stimulus. The internal consistency was evaluated by correlating the scores obtained on the first session by all subjects in terms of the level of ambiguity. These correlations were quite low, indicating the need for caution in using an additive treatment of scores from different TAT cards. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

The primary purpose of this study was to formulate critical categories to adequately reflect the categorization or perceptual reactions of normal individuals to the picture stimuli of the cards of the Thematic Apperception Test. An additional problem investigated was the comparison of the categorization reactions obtained from a "normal" sample in this investigation with those obtained from a "disturbed" sample in a parallel research conducted by Long (I960). In order to form the critical categories and to compare the perceptual reactions of the "normal" group with those of the "disturbed" group, categorization reactions to twenty-six cards of the TAT were obtained from forty-Vancouver Vocational Institute students. Following the empirical development of the categories, a comparison of the differences in frequency count of the categorization reactions of the two groups was explored utilizing a chi square statistic. A total of two hundred and sixteen categories were obtained for the twenty-six cards. In a comparison of the frequency distribution of the categorization reactions for the "normal" and "disturbed" groups, insignificant differences were found on one hundred and ninety-seven categories suggesting that the perceptual reactions of the two groups do not vary greatly. However, compared with the "normal" group, the "disturbed" group showed a marked tendency for restricted transcendent production as indicated by a majority of "disturbed" persons giving purely descriptive responses on twenty-four of the twenty-six cards. This difference was found to be significant on eight of the cards. An additional, comparison was made, employing a chi square statistic, of the differences between the two groups in the frequency distribution of subjects giving nil-single or multiple perceptual responses. On twenty-five of the cards, more "normals" than "disturbed" subjects gave multiple responses. This variance was found to be statistically significant on nine of the cards. Nineteen of the two hundred and sixteen categories were found to produce statistically significant differences in the frequency distribution between the two samples. The "Description" category accounted for eight of these differences and various transcendent categories accounted for the remaining eleven. Fourteen cards produced one or more categories showing a reliable variation in distribution between the "normal" and "disturbed" groups. Of this number, eleven cards showed significant differences in one category, one card in two categories and two cards in three categories. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

This study deals with the initial stage of a programme of research investigating the nature of the stimulus factors in the Thematic Apperception Test. The primary function of the study was to categorize perceptual reactions to the TAT cards. A secondary aim was to compare the perceptual responses obtained from an abnormal group with those produced by a normal group in a parallel study. Descriptions of twenty-six of the TAT cards were obtained from forty mental hospital patients. From these protocols and those of forty normal subjects, empirically derived perceptual categories were developed. The perceptual responses were then assigned to these critical categories. Several reliability studies were carried out and a number of rules governing the assignment of the responses to the categories was developed. An inter-judge reliability of 91 per cent agreement was obtained. A frequency count was then made for both the normal and abnormal groups and Chi squares were computed in order to determine whether any differences existed between the groups in the frequency of response for each category. The number of percepts contained in each response was also counted and the two groups were then statistically compared on the basis of the number of single percept responses to each card. From a total of 216 categories, 16 significant differences were found. The cards in which these differences appeared were: 1, 2, 5, 6BM, 7BM, 8BM, 9GF, 12BG,14, 15, 17GF, 19 and 20. In eight of these cards the abnormal group produced a larger number of responses in the descriptive category than the normal group. The two groups differed slightly regarding the number of percepts contained in each response. All but one of the cards elicited more single percept responses from the abnormal group than from the normal one. Nine of the cards showed statistically significant differences between the number of abnormal and normal subjects giving single percept responses. By means of the statistical comparison, it was shown that the perceptual reactions of the normal and abnormal subjects were essentially the same; certain differences, however, between the perceptual responses of the normal and abnormal groups, were suggested. The study established that reliable perceptual categories could be developed and perceptual responses successfully categorized. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this study was to investigate the hypothesis that stimulus deprivation leads to anxiety which, in turn, causes cognitive behavior to become impaired and disorganized. This hypothesis, which is derived from a model recently developed by Kenny (1959), assumes that anxiety produces a disruption in a person's schema (imaginative trains or sequences of thought) causing his schemata to be more constrictive and his cognitive functions, therefore, more disorganized. In addition, it is predicted that, as TAT pictures become more drive-structured (and, therefore, less ambiguous), anxiety will constrict the schemata of strong drive subjects, and the richness of their stories for a given drive should consequently decrease. In this study twenty female subjects in an experimental group were completely deprived of pattern vision and audio and tactual stimulation was partially eliminated. At the end of a twenty minute accommodation period members of both the experimental and the control groups were asked to tell stories around descriptions of six TAT cards which were arranged into three groups according to the amount of aggression found in each description (i.e. low, medium and high in aggressive content). The anxiety aroused by the experimental conditions was expected to be manifested in the stories of the experimental group. These stories would show greater disorganization, conflict and stereotypy than those given by a control group. Subjects in the experimental group would also introduce more aggression in stories given in response to medium aggressive cards, less aggression on high aggressive cards and the same amount as the control group in response to low aggressive cards. In addition, they would rate themselves higher on an anxiety questionnaire than would the subjects in the control group. Since eight out of fifteen predictions were borne out by the analysis, the results are interpreted as being partially in support of Kenny's model - that is, since experimental subjects rated themselves higher on the anxiety questionnaire, and introduced more aggression in their stories to the medium aggressive descriptions, it is believed that the condition of stimulus deprivation was successful in producing anxiety, which, in turn, caused a disruption in cognitive functioning. This disruption was witnessed in the organization and presentation of the stories given by the subjects in the experimental group. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

Statement of the problem. The purpose of this study is to determine whether or not imaginative productivity can be significantly increased by the use of relatively obscured pictorial material as compared with the productions obtained through the use of a criterion set of pictorial materials.

No description available.

The TAT protocols of 30 sexually abused female children and 30 female children with no documented history of abuse were analyzed using the Scoring Scheme for the TAT and Other Verbal Projective Techniques (Fine, 1955). No significant differences were found between groups on mean number of negative feelings portraited in the TAT stories. Similarly, no significant differences were found between groups on mean number of unfavorable outcomes to TAT stories. However, when specific feelings were considered, subjects in the sexual abuse group showed a significantly higher incidence of reference to guilt and sexuality. These results were independent of age, race, and intelligence.

published_or_final_version / Psychology / Master / Master of Philosophy

No description available.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1982. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 64-65).