Interpersonal touching and orality.

Sixty-five undergraduates were assigned to guide a blindfolded confederate through a floor maze. The frequency of touching the confederate's skin and the length of time required to complete the trip through the maze were recorded. Each subject was also given a self-administered Rorschach test; an independent count was made of the number of oral responses given. Orality was positively related to touching behavior (r=.39, p=.001) and with speed of guiding the confederate through the maze (r=.31, p=.01).     

When Homer nods: an examination of some systematic errors in Rorschach scholarship

Considerable evidence has demonstrated that many scientists attempt to avoid disconfirmation of a favored theory. This tendency sometimes characterizes the scholarship of both those who favor the Rorschach (Exner, 2000) method and those who find it seriously flawed. Psychologists who use the Rorschach impressionistically are not deterred by the literature demonstrating that this procedure has thus far shown little established validity. Those who criticize the Rorschach dismiss the objectivity of the American Psychological Association (APA) Blue Ribbon Panel, which concluded that the test has proven validity, and by implication, they also dismiss the APA peer review process that approved the panel report. In addition, they ignore over 400 published studies showing the Rorschach has acceptable validity when responses are scored objectively.     

Orality and latency of volunteering to serve as experimental subjects: a replication

Comparison of Rorschach orality scores for undergraduate subjects who signed up to participate in psychology experiments during the first (n = 217) and second (n = 87) halves of the semester revealed that early participators report a significantly (p = .03) greater number of oral Rorschach responses (X = 3.765) than late participators (X = 3.218). This result confirms an earlier serendipitous finding (Masling, O'Neill, & Jayne, 1981) that volunteering to participate in required experiments is not a chance event and can, in fact, be predicted using methods derived from psychoanalytic theory. Our finding supports the utility of psychoanalytic principles in predicting important aspects of nonlaboratory behavior.     

Speak, memory, or goodbye, Columbus

This article describes the vicissitudes in the career of a psychologist who entered graduate school almost immediately after the end of World War II at a time when the standards and definitions of appropriate training in clinical psychology were still being determined. Looking back at the developments in this career, a pattern of interests, unseen at the time, can now be detected. From investigating the influence of the subject-examiner relationship in the testing situation to the experimental study of psychoanalytic propositions, first using the Rorschach test and later by means of subliminal stimulation procedures, one central theme was the uncovering of disguises and hidden motives. A second major theme, much more explicit than the first, was the primacy of data over speculation.     

Orality and latency of volunteering to serve as experimental subjects

A comparison was made of the oral content of Rorschach scores of male Introductory Psychology students who signed up for experiments in the first half of the semester with those who did not sign up until the second half of the semester. Those who participated early in the semester saw more oral images than those who waited until late in the semester to participate (p = .02). The implications of this finding are discussed.     

Oral dependence and dependent behavior

Eighty undergraduates were asked to solve a series of difficult puzzles, with the instructions that they could ask for help as often as necessary. Half the subjects had an experimenter of the same sex and half of the opposite sex. The subjects were categorized as high or low dependent based on the percentage of oral dependent responses they gave on the Rorschach test. The results indicated that while the male subjects generally performed as predicted (with high oral dependent males asking for help more than low oral dependent males), the opposite results were obtained for females. Additional analyses suggested that what has been called oral dependence consists of at least two factors that relate in different ways to other variables.     

How do I score thee? Let me count the ways. Or some different methods of categorizing Rorschach responses

The controversy over the merit of Exner's (1986) Comprehensive System (CS) has unfortunately led to a confusion of the CS with all methods of scoring responses to inkblots. Six other widely used Rorschach scoring methods and representative examples of the research they have generated are described. Objective tests of personality ask participants to acknowledge explicit motives, whereas projective tests sample implicit needs participants may not recognize. Projective methods provide unique means of studying personality dynamics. The CS, whatever its merits and limitations, is but 1 of a number of systems of categorizing Rorschach responses.