Judgment of Children's Popularity from Their Human Figure Drawings

The assumption is presented of the test-taker as a hypothesis-generating organism who can become "testwise." Testwiseness is defined as a stable skill, acquired by test-taking experiences, by which an individual can make test responses conform to a desired response pattern. Forty-three college students completed two forms of The Personality Research Form (PRF) and a rank ordering of their predicted personality need pattern. Results show significantly higher correlations of PRF predictions in the second administration. Analyses show PRF profiles, not predictions, to have been modified. Furthermore, high testwise subjects had higher needs for Understanding and Nurturance, and lower needs for Aggression and Defendence than low testwise persons. The importance of considering testwiseness, given trends in society encouraging access to psychological records, is discussed.     

Social Emotions in Children's Human Figure Drawings: Drawing Shame,Pride and Jealousy

The study examines children's ability to convey social – as opposed to basic – emotions in their human figure drawings. One hundred children aged 4‐, 6‐ and 8‐years were asked to draw a person experiencing shame, pride, jealousy, happiness, sadness and fear as well as a baseline figure ‘feeling nothing’. Drawings were rated in terms of (i) overall emotional expressiveness and (ii) variety and types (face, body/posture and context) of graphic cues used to convey emotion. The effect of age on overall expressiveness and use of these graphic cues was also investigated. The results showed that drawings depicting social emotions were rated as less expressive and presented fewer graphic cues than those conveying basic emotions. Children's developing ability to depict pride, shame and jealousy was largely driven by an increased use of contextual cues in their human figure drawings. As regards the effect of age, it was found that 6‐ and 8‐years old produced more expressive drawings containing a larger range of graphic cues than the 4‐year olds. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Changes in Human Figure Drawings During Intensive Treatment

This article examines change in the human figure drawings (HFDs) of 32 seriously disturbed young adults during the course of intensive inpatient treatment. HFDs drawn at the time of admission were compared with HFDs obtained more than 1 year after intensive treatment began; both sets were scored on the Goodenough-Harris Scale (GH) and the Robins Balance-Tilt Scale (RBT). The findings indicate that the HFDs significantly improved over the course of treatment, but only for those patients judged introjective, not anaclitic. These findings are consistent with prior research on the same population that were based on analyses of clinical case records and Rorschach protocols (Blatt, Ford, Berman, Cook, & Meyer, 1988). Significant change in the HFDs over the course of treatment suggests that the HFDs provide a unique and independent dimension for assessing therapeutic change.     

Figure Preferences in Two Generations of Men: The Use of Figure Drawings Illustrating Differences in Muscle Mass

Using a new set of male figure drawings which(unlike the Stunkard, Sorensen, & Schulsinger, 1983figures) illustrate differing degrees of muscle massrather than body fat, college men and adult men selected their current figure, ideal figure,figure they thought most attractive to women and figurethat they thought would be the ideal for other men.Adult men's choices indicated satisfaction with their current bodies, but college men's selectionsindicated a desire to be larger (partly because theybelieve that a much larger body is what everybody {menand women} finds most attractive). The male body college women find most attractive is largerthan what college men indicate they currently have butsmaller than what the college men want to look like.Adult women chose an ideal male figure which is the same as that which the adult men indicate theyhave. Thus, selections using the new figure drawingsshow a desire for more muscle mass in college men andsatisfaction in adult men, while selections using the Stunkard et al. (1983) figuredrawings indicated satisfaction in college men and adesire for less body fat in the adult men (Rozin &Fallon, 1988). Both sets of figures provide valuableinformation.     

The Representation of the Body Self in Human Figure Drawings

The matching of 25 frontal drawings of the female human figure with 25 frontal photographs of the college women who drew the figures was attempted by 30 male graduate psychology students and 30 women religious graduate students of art. The drawings and photos were arranged in envelopes according to a balanced lattice design, and presented to each of the judges in different envelopes in an order determined by randomized latin squares. Both groups matched the drawings with the photographs of the same Ss at significantly higher than chance expectancy (p<.01). These findings suggest that this matching technique may be of some value in testing the hypothesis of objective body self projection in human figure drawings.     

Sex of Free Choice Figure Drawings by Homosexual and Heterosexual Subjects

This article reports the findings from studies investigating the relationship between: (a) sex of free choice figure drawings and sexual inversion and (b) sex of free choice figure drawings and gender identity. Both relationships were found to be statistically nonsignificant.     

Ascription of Maturity to Human Figure Drawings by Preschool Children

Summary

Forty-five preschool children, shown outline human figure drawings (all arbitrarily drawn to the same stature) whose overall body proportions were typical of individuals aged 0, 2, 6, 12, and 25 years, generally distinguished more maturely from less maturely proportioned figures, the absence of nonproportion cues to maturity notwithstanding. This is noteworthy, since agerelated changes in stature and in proportion are confounded in nature, and since our culture emphasizes stature cues and neglects proportion cues to maturity. Although Ss generally distinguished more mature from less mature figures on the basis of body proportions, the proportions of immature individuals nonetheless tended to be assimilated to those of the mature individual.     

Body Image Concerns of Psoriasis Patients As Reflected in Human Figure Drawings

Human figure drawings of patients with severe (n = 85) and mild (n = 38) psoriasis were compared on dimensions of nudity, sexual overemphasis, and omissions of exposed body parts. For female patients significant differences were found for percentages of undressed figures and omissions. For male patients only omissions were significant. When compared to 30 patients with other mild dermatologic conditions, mildly affected psoriatic males drew significantly fewer omissions. Discussion of results focused on body image concerns, of dermatology patients as related to issues of nudity, sexuality, and exhibition of exposed body parts.     

Human Figure Drawings as Predictors of Admission to a Psychiatric Hospital

Blind predictions were made as to admission or non-admission as an overall rating and as to degree of pathology in eight areas of personality, based only on human figure drawings. These drawings were obtained from a sample of 105 individuals presenting for psychiatric hospital admission. The judgments were all in the predicted direction and significant for admission-non-admission, impulsivity, and severity of pathology. Cues utilized in the successful judgments were categorized as structural or content and scaled by degree of pathology. Structural cues predominated. We conclude that HFD's are a useful screening device for clinical judgment of degree of psychopathology. The basis of such judgments can be specified in terms of structural deviations rather than from symbolic content.     

The Usefulness of Human Figure Drawings as an Index of Overall Adjustment

This study investigates the relation between global ratings of human figure drawings and psychological adjustment. The sample was comprised of a group of Vietnamese refugees who were evaluated at their entry into a residential education program. Adjustment was defined as the number of foster-care placements experienced by these clients during the 5 years following the program. Results showed that ratings of overall artistic quality, figure bizarreness, and estimated client adjustment all varied linearly as a function of number of foster-care placements. A fourth predictor variable, number of Koppitz emotional indicators, did not produce this result. All four predictor variables were found to be related, and it was shown that rating of figure bizarreness alone adequately predicted the criterion. implications of these results are discussed, and results suggest that projective drawings could provide a useful index of overall adjustment when better sources of information are not available.     

Upper Left Hand Placement of Human Figure Drawings as an Indicator of Anxiety

The present study explored the validity of upper left hand placement as an indicator of anxiety in human figure drawings. The DAP and the IPAT Anxiety Scale were administered to 103 college students. Their drawings were then judged for the presence or absence of the indicator under investigation. A Mann-Whitney U-test was used to test for differences in anxiety scores between the indicator present and the indicator absent group. Significant differences were found (p < .01) supporting the hypothesis that upper left placement is a valid indicator of anxiety.     

幼儿遮挡绘画的发展研究

关于幼儿绘画的“知”、“见”矛盾历来是儿童绘画认知发展研究中的热点,对于此现象的探讨,用得最多的是绘画遮挡关系的模型。该文主要介绍关于幼儿物体遮挡的绘画及幼儿绘画认知发展的研究,归纳出关于幼儿把遮挡关系绘画成“分离”的三种原因,同时对幼儿画中的“知”,“见”矛盾加以解释。     

Theory of Mind in Children's Naming of Drawings

Research suggests that children engage in mentalistic reasoning in their identification of drawings and other artifacts. To explore this phenomenon further, in 2 studies 4-year-olds, 7-year-olds, and adults chose names for drawings based on either the artist's intention, the drawing's resemblance to an object, or (in Study 1) a causal relation between the drawing and an object. When intention was directly pitted against resemblance or causality, participants generally chose resemblance-based or causality-based names, but when resemblance was ambiguous, participants tended to choose intention-based names. Thus, although intention was used to identify drawings when the drawings were ambiguous, participants seemed to reject a purported intention when it directly conflicted with resemblance. In addition, for older participants, the artist's knowledge of the intended referent affected the extent to which they took intention into account.     

儿童整体-局部加工中的负启动现象

采用2种元素疏密程度的复合数字刺激和启动范式,7岁和11岁2个年龄组的小学生分别在注意整体水平和注意局部水平的条件下对探测刺激进行选择反应。结果发现元素疏密程度可以影响知觉优先,而知觉优先与整体局部水平间的负启动之间没有一致的发展关系,说明与负启动有关的注意分配机制可能比知觉组织发展的晚。     

儿童的几何图形预期表象

将儿童几何图形预期表象分为两种水平,即再认水平的预期表象和生成水平的预期表象。采用“平移”、“对称”、“重叠”三种平面几何图形的预期表象作业和“展开”、“旋转”、“截面”三种立体几何图形的预期表象作业考察了3至12岁儿童几何图形预期表象的发生和发展。结果表明：儿童再认预期表象的发生早于生成预期表象的发生;儿童预期表象的发生和发展明显受几何图形类型和作业类型的制约     

Preferences and Children's Use of Gender-Stereotyped Knowledge About Musical Instruments: Making Judgments About Other Children's Preferences

A developmental model of gender-stereotype acquisition (Martin, 1989) proposes that by the age of 8 years children draw upon information about gender-stereotyped interests as well as other children's sex when deciding how much other children would like different activities; younger children rely on sex only when making such decisions. We examined whether the judgments that children made about other children's preferences were different from those that they made about their own preferences for masculine and feminine musical instruments. Three hundred twelve children aged 8–9 years ranked 6 instruments in order of preference, and rated on a 4-point scale how much they would like to play each one. Children were then asked to decide how much other children would like to play each instrument. Only girls' own preferences for feminine instruments differed according to the gender-stereotyping of their most-preferred instrument. Judgments about how much other children would like masculine and feminine instruments did not differ according to those children's gender-stereotyped interest. Children made stereotypical predictions about the preferences of children of unknown sex who played either a masculine or feminine instrument. Implications for a theoretical account of the development of children's gender-stereotypes are discussed.     

Women's Body Figure Preferences Across the Life Span

Body figure preferences were examined in a sample of 180 women 18 to 59 years old. Participants were presented with Fallon and Rozin's (1985) set of 9 silhouette drawings ranging from very thin to very heavy. Women of all ages rated their current figure as significantly larger than their ideal figure, indicating the presence of body dissatisfaction across the life span. The degree of body dissatisfaction did not vary with age, marital status, educational level, or occupational status. However, in contrast to the younger women's responses and to the results of previous studies, women over the age of 30 years rated their ideal figure as significantly larger than the one perceived as most attractive to men. Therefore, conclusions concerning this issue that are based on studies of college undergraduates cannot necessarily be generalized to other groups of women.     

Children's Drawings as Diagnostic Aids (Book)

Studied the discriminatory potential of the Kinetic Family Drawing technique (KFD). The drawings of 20 male adolescent delinquents were compared to a group of 20 normal male adolescents in older to discover whether any hypothesized differences existed. Significant chi square differences were found on only three of the variables: (a) body omission, (b) lack of family, and (c) akinesis. The delinquent group tended to manifest all three of these traits in their KFDs. The value of the KFD in terms of normative discrimination and/or prediction was found to be somewhat inconclusive in light of the low number of distinguishing traits and the Small size of the sample.