title: Might the Rorschach be a projective test after all? Social projection of an undesired trait alters Rorschach Oral Dependency scores.
abstract: The degree to which projection plays a role in Rorschach (Rorschach, 1921/1942) responding remains controversial, in part because extant data have yielded inconclusive results. In this investigation, I examined the impact of social projection on Rorschach Oral Dependency (ROD) scores using methods adapted from social cognition research. In Study 1, I prescreened 85 college students (40 women and 45 men) with the ROD scale and a widely used self-report measure of dependency, the Interpersonal Dependency Inventory (IDI; Hirschfeld et al., 1977). Results show that informing participants who scored low on the IDI that they were in fact highly dependent led to significant increases in ROD scores; I did not obtain parallel ROD increases for participants who scored high on the IDI or for participants who received low-dependent feedback. In Study 2, I examined a separate sample of 80 prescreened college students (40 women and 40 men) and showed that providing low self-report participants an opportunity to attribute dependency to a fictional target person prior to Rorschach responding attenuated the impact of high-dependent feedback on ROD scores. These results suggest that projection played a role in at least one domain of Rorschach responding. I discuss theoretical, clinical, and empirical implications of these results.
authors.affiliation: Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY 11530, USA. bornstein@adelphi.edu
authors.forename: Robert F
authors.initials: RF
authors.lastname: Bornstein
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003858:Dependency, Psychological; D030141:Feedback, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009518:New York; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012392:Rorschach Test; D012938:Social Perception