A Music Projective Technique

Twenty college students and twenty hospitalized patients diagnosed as schizophrenic, equated for age, sex, and intelligence, were told to tell a story to sixteen successive pre-recorded excerpts of music. Tests of reliability indicated that the Ss' reaction times and rates of verbalization were stable from music excerpt to excerpt and from test to retest. Interrater reliabilities of judgments concerning verbal content of responses were acceptable. Analyses of variance indicated the hospitalized group had longer reaction times before verbalization to the music stimulus, spoke less during the music, but more during the interim period between music excerpts. The hospitalized group used significantly less human content and visual imagery, but significantly more animal content than the college group. In general, reaction time was quicker to fast tempo music than slow tempo music, and fast tempo music evoked happier more outgoing themes than slow tempo music. Stories told by the hospitalized group were often highly inappropriate vis-a-vis music demands. The instrument clearly differentiated groups.     

Some Structural Variables in Auditory Projective Testing

This study explored perceived pleasantness of auditory projective stimuli as related to three aspects of the projective response; emotional tone, RT and length of stories. Thirty blind and 30 sighted males, comparable in age and intelligence, told stories in response to eight selected auditory stimuli and rated them for pleasantness. Emotional tone varied significantly with pleasantness for 5 out of 8 sounds. Pleasantness was not significantly related to story length nor to RT, except for the sound of weeping. Blind Ss told longer stories than the sighted. Apparent consistent individual differences in response to the auditory projective method were observed. This technique seems useful in the study of personality, perception and cognition of sighted and blind persons.     

Initial Notes on Content in Auditory Projective Testing

A comparative approach was used in studying content in auditory projective testing. Stories told by sighted and blind persons in response to the sounds of a train and water were presented. Qualitative differences in the content of stories were noted. The negative tone of the projective response was discussed in terms of stimulus properties, the nature of the auditory modality, and the particular contributions of the auditory method in personality assessment.     

The Performance of Juvenile Delinquents on the Holtzman Inkblot Technique: A Normative Study

Abstract

Bohm, Ewald Lehrbuch der Rorschach-Psychodiagnostik fuer Psychologen, Aerzte und Paedagogen (Text book of Rorschach Psycho-diagnostics for Psychologists, Physicians, and Educators). Verlag Hans Huber, Bern, 1951. XXIII &; 406 pp. Reviewed by Olov G. Gardebring

Shneidman, Edwin S. with the collaboration of Walther Joel and Kenneth B. Little. Thematic Test Analysis. Grune and Stratton, New York, 1951. pp. 320. Reviewed by Samuel B. Kutash     

A Normative Study of TAT Ambiguity

Type D personality refers to a clustering of 2 stable personality traits, namely negative affectivity and social inhibition. Currently Type D is standardly assessed using the DS14. An experimental Type D personality scale, the DS⁽³⁾, was developed to examine an avenue for assessing Type D more efficiently. The DS⁽³⁾ differs from the DS14 in its use of a 3-point Likert scale to rate responses, use of all negatively worded items, and a rearranged presentation of items. This article examines the psychometric properties of this questionnaire by examining its dimensionality, item and scale properties, and cutoff scores to screen for Type D personality. Data from 2 clinical samples were analyzed using item response theory. The results suggest that the DS⁽³⁾ is a potentially suitable instrument for Type D assessment. It has high reliability, and Type D personality classification based on this scale corresponds well with the current standard Type D assessment based on the DS14.     

A Normative Rorschach Study of Athenians

The Rorschach Test was given to 200 Athenian adults. The sample was representative of the greater Athens, Greece area according to known proportions of sex, age, education and income. Productivity, location, human movement, color, F%, F+%, content, cards rejected, and popular responses were reported. Except for greater productivity in females, no other sex differences were found. Age, education or income were not sources of Rorschach variation. Experience balance was introversive. Similarities and differences between American and Greek Rorschachs were discussed.     

Czech version of Rey Auditory Verbal Learning test: Normative data

The present study provides normative data stratified by age for the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning test Czech version (RAVLT) derived from a sample of 306 cognitively normal subjects (20–85 years). Participants met strict inclusion criteria (absence of any active or past neurological or psychiatric disorder) and performed within normal limits on other neuropsychological measures. Our analyses revealed significant relationships between most RAVLT indices and age and education. Normative data are provided not only for basic RAVLT scores, but for the first time also for a variety of derived (gained/lost access, primacy/recency effect) and error scores. The study confirmed a logarithmic character of the learning slope and is consistent with other studies. It enables the clinician to evaluate more precisely subject’s RAVLT memory performance on a vast number of indices and can be viewed as a concrete example of Quantified Process Approach to neuropsychological assessment.     

Application of Projective Tests to Psychotherapy: A Case Study

Case study of a severely disturbed patient seen in psychotherapy in a university counseling center and tested at the beginning and after the termination of therapy. It is concluded that the projective tests proved useful in estimating the extent of pathology prior to therapy and in assessing the degree and direction of change following therapy. Discussion of this patient's projective responses with him during therapy was found to be beneficial, in accord with Richman's views on the reporting of test results to patients. It is suggested that clinical psychologists doing psychotherapy may similarly find projective tests of use to them.     

Projective identification: an alternative hypothesis

The concept of projective identification as a primitive defense mechanism is reassessed. An alternative hypothesis is offered: that projective identification can best be understood as a compromise formation which includes as its major component an "identification with the aggressor" or a "turning of passive into active." This reversal is demonstrated within a two-tiered transference/countertransference of the analyst as powerful parent and the patient as the helpless child. On the deeper level the patient enacts the role of dominant parent and the analyst experiences the feelings which the patient had felt as a child.     

Five Elements of Normative Ethics - A General Theory of Normative Individualism

The article tries to inquire a third way in normative ethics between consequentialism or utilitarianism and deontology or Kantianism. To find such a third way in normative ethics, one has to analyze the elements of these classical theories and to look if they are justified. In this article it is argued that an adequate normative ethics has to contain the following five elements: (1) normative individualism, i. e., the view that in the last instance moral norms and values can only be justified by reference to the individuals concerned, as its basis; (2) consideration of the individuals’ concerns and interests—aims, desires, needs, strivings—insofar as they have a justificatory function; (3) a pluralism of references of these concerns and hence of moral norms and values to all possible elements of actions; (4) the necessity of a principle of aggregation and weighing with regard to these concerns; (5) finally, as a central principle of aggregation and weighing, the principle of relative reference to self and others, operating as a generalizing meta-principle that guides the application of concrete principles and decisions.     

Attention Training With Auditory Hallucinations: A Case Study

The case presented in this paper illustrates how Attention Training (ATT; [Wells, A. (1990). Panic disorder in association with relaxation induced anxiety: An attentional training approach to treatment. Behavior Therapy, 21, 273–280.]) can be applied in an outpatient setting in the treatment of auditory hallucinations. The 25-year-old male patient presented had a 4-year history of schizophrenia and treatment-refractory auditory hallucinations. He had received cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) before starting ATT. CBT had changed his attribution of the voices, and when he started with ATT the patient no longer held the belief that “voices are dangerous,” but his processing configuration was still acting “as if” the voices were a source of threat: He would listen to them, ruminate about them, and was easily distracted by them. Eight sessions of ATT resulted in a reduction of symptoms and in a dramatic change in the perceived control and mastery of the auditory hallucinations. It is concluded that ATT may be a helpful adjunct strategy in the treatment of specific psychotic symptoms.     

A Normative Pragmatic Theory of Exhorting

We submit a normative pragmatic theory of exhorting—an account of conceptually necessary and potentially efficacious components of a coherent strategy for securing a sympathetic hearing for efforts to urge and inspire addressees to act on high-minded principles. Based on a Gricean analysis of utterance-meaning, we argue that the concept of exhorting comprises making statements openly urging addressees to perform some high-minded, principled course of action; openly intending to inspire addressees to act on the principles; and intending that addressees’ recognition of the intentions to urge and inspire creates reasons for addressees to grant a sympathetic hearing to what the speaker has to say. We show that the theory accounts for the design of Abraham Lincoln’s Cooper Union address. By doing so we add to the inventory of reasons why social actors make arguments, continue a line of research showing the relationship of arguing to master speech acts, and show that making arguments can be an effective strategy for inspiring principled action.     

A Coherentist Theory of Normative Authority

What makes an ``ought'' claim authoritative? What makes aparticular norm genuinely reason-giving for an agent? This paper arguesthat normative authority can best be accounted for in terms of thejustification of norms. The main obstacle to such a theory, however, isa regress problem. The worry is that every attempt to offer ajustification for an ``ought'' claim must appeal to another ``ought''claim, ad infinitum. The paper argues that vicious regress canbe avoided in practical reasoning in the same way coherentists avoid theproblem in epistemology. Norms are justified by their coherence withother norms.