Rorschach test official
Online Rorschach Inkblot Test
Promoting the ethical use of the Rorschach Inkblot Test
Established in 1996, as "The Original Rorschach Website," Rorschach.org was founded by Mark W. Matthews, PhD and aims to continue providing an online resource for information about the ethical and professional use of Rorschach Inkblot Test. To this end, we have collected a variety of resources and products to help the student and professional administer, score, and interpret the Rorschach Inkblot Test in an ethical, reliable, and valid manner.
Our vision is to provide fair, unbiased, accurate, and useful professional, scientific and objective information to students, professionals, and lay persons regarding the Rorschach Inkblot Test.
For the record, we are in favor of trained and skilled professionals utilizing the Rorschach in an appropriate manner, in appropriate settings, and to answer appropriate clinical questions.
Much of the controversy regarding the Rorschach Inkblot Test surrounds the definition of the word "appropriate. "
A self-evaluation online is by no means appropriate. The original cards used are shown below. We have also created a gallery of custom cards along with offering recommended books, historical information, and an FAQ section.
The following video offers a brief history of the test.
The test is conducted by a professional psychologist on subjects ranging between ages 5 and adulthood. Adminstrators typically sit side-by-side to ensure they do not influence the participants answers.
The test consists of a series of 10 symetrical blots where the subject states what they see. These slides are shown in the same order to align modern observations with historical performance.
While some sites offer A/B/C/D online quizes that purport to represent the rorscach test, those do a poor job of representing the actual test.
The open ended nature of the test allows subjects to state a wide range of observations based on their perceptions & emotional state. An online quiz where users select among pre-determined choices has no way to capture this depth.
Blot Card 1
Popular resonses: bat, butterfly, moth
This card is a relatively easy one in the series, with much of any asosciated stress in dealing with it being trying to understand how to conduct a new task.
Blot Card 2
Popular responses: two humans, four-legged animal such as a dog, elephant or bear
Many subjects interpret the red as blood, which can display how the subject might respond to feelings of anger or physical harm. Some also associate the blood with power & have sexual responses to the card.
Blot Card 3
Popular responses: two people
Responses to this card can show if people have struggles in managing social settings & how they interact with others.
Blot Card 4
Popular responses: animal hide, animal skin, skin rug
The dark color of this blot can pose difficulty for depressed subjects. The "face" appears to be looking downward which makes it look like one is looking "up" at an imposing monster, to understand how one responds to authority. The card is often perceived as being associated with a male figure, which is why the card is often called "The Father Card."
Blot Card 5
Popular responses: bat, butterly, moth
This card is viewed as a transition card that does not typically evoke strong emotional response. The topic is usually seen as non-threatening & indicate a "change of pace" to where the test will become easier.
Blot Card 6
Popular responses: animal hide, animal skin, skin rug
While the core interpretation is of a similar topic to blot card 4, the texture of this blot stands out as a stronger feature.
This can elicit associations related to itnerpersonal closeness & is associated with sex more than any of the other cards.
Blot Card 7
Popular responses: human heads, faces, heads of women or children
This card can be asssociated with feminity & it functions as the "mother card." If a person struggles to respond to this card it could indicate one has difficulty with female figures in their life. In some cases the blot can be associated with a vagina, relating to female sexuality.
Blot Card 8
Popular responses: pink four-legged animal, some animal other than a cat or dog
The color in this card brightens the mood when compared to the black & white blots. This change in color also creates a perceived "change of pace" though adding color to the card along with the additional details can overwhelm people who struggle to cope with complex situations.
Blot Card 9
Popular response: human
This card is generally vague, relying on diffuse, muted chromatic features & an indistinct form. This, in turn, means many people struggle with finding anything specif of note in it. Though if a subject has difficulty processing this card to generate a response it can indicate trouble dealing with unstructured data.
Blot Card 10
Popular responses: crab, lobster, blue spider, rabit head, worms, snakes, caterpillars
Subjects are aware this card is the last one, so it may give them an opportunity to reveal anything they wanted to state but failed to state thusfar. The complexity of it may overwhelf some people who can not manage significant concurrent stimuli.
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Rorschach Test
The Rorschach Inkblot Test is one of the most famous psychological projective tests in the world.
Psychologists use the Rorschach to examine the personality characteristics and emotional functioning of the test taker. The test is often employed in detecting underlying thought patterns and differentiating psychotic from non-psychotic dispositions in a person’s thinking. The Rorschach is also used in forensic and custody cases, as well as to gauge a person’s general degree of adjustment to society.
What do your associations to the Rorschach images predict about you? For each of the following images, select the answer that comes the closest to your association below.
The IDRlabs Rorschach Inkblot Test (IDR-RIT©) is the property of IDRlabs International. The IDR-RIT utilizes the concept of Rorschach’s Inkblots, but is not associated with Hermann Rorschach or the International Society of the Rorschach and Projective Methods, and it is not the equivalent of other Rorschach Inkblot Tests. The present test is in no way endorsed by, nor affiliated with, Hermann Rorschach, the International Society of the Rorschach and Projective Methods, or similar entities.
No infringement is intended by the present test.
This Rorschach Inkblot Test has been made with the aid of professional analysts who have experience with organizational psychology. The test uses genuine psychometric items to measure the respondent’s correspondence to underlying thought patterns, as well as to gauge the respondent’s general level of well-being. The test is based on the following research: Iwasa, K. & Ogawa, T. (2013). Rorschach texture responses are related to adult attachment via tactile imagery and emotion. Rorschachiana, 34(2), 115–136. Miguel, F. K. & Pessotto, F. (2016). Projective aspects on cognitive performance: Distortions in emotional perception correlate with personality. Psicologia: Reflexão e Crítica, 29(1), 17. Tibon-Czopp, S. & Weiner, I.B. (2016). The Rorschach Inkblot Method: Theory. Rorschach Assessment of Adolescents. Advancing Responsible Adolescent Development. Springer, New York, NY.
Rorschach Inkblot Tests, whether they are professional, used in academic research, or free online tests like this one, are indicators to help give you a clue as to your typical thought patterns and your general level of healthy adjustment to society.
In general, when dealing with projective psychometric tests like this one, no test ever devised can designate your thought patterns and general degree of healthy adjustment with complete accuracy or reliability, and no test can replace familiarizing yourself with the inner working of your mind in depth. For more information on the Rorschach Inkblot Test, consult materials from the International Society of the Rorschach and Projective Methods.
The authors of this free online Rorschach Inkblot Test are certified in the use of numerous different personality tests and have worked professionally with psychology, political psychology, and personality testing. Prior to using our free online test, please note that the results are provided "as-is", for free, and should not be construed as providing professional or certified advice of any kind. For more on our online Rorschach Inkblot, please consult our Terms of Service.
"Rorschach Spots" or test for psychopaths : vakin - LiveJournal
The Rorschach test ("Rorschach spots") is a psychological projection test containing 10 printed cards (5 black and white, and 5 color).
It was created in 1921 and published by psychologist Hermann Rorschach in the journal Psychodiagnostik. During the 1940s and 1950s, this test was inextricably linked to clinical psychology.
During most of the 20th century, the Rorschach test was very common and was a well-interpreted psychological test. For example, in studies of 1947 (Louttit and Browne) and 1961 (Sundberg), it was named, in terms of frequency of use, the fourth and first psychological test, respectively.
Despite its widespread use, a large number of controversies have been associated with the Rorschach test. Researchers often found it difficult to systematically study the test and its results, and the use of several different rating systems for the responses given to each image created a certain amount of confusion.
Rorschach test (inkblot test) is a projective test that analyzes a person's personality and character traits based on the interpretation of inkblots.
Hermann Rorschach (1884-1922) - Swiss psychiatrist.
He was the eldest son of an artist who, having achieved success, earned his living by teaching in Zurich. Thanks to his father, he became interested in the art of ink as a child, and in high school he had the nickname "Klex" (lit. "ink spot").
The history of Rorschach
Herman Rorschach dreamed of becoming an artist in his youth, and in the gymnasium he bore the nickname "Blob". After graduating from high school with honors, Rorschach went to college to study medicine.
Rorschach with his wife Olga Shtempelin, 1910s, Switzerland
He met his future wife Olga Shtempelin, a native of Kazan, while studying medicine. In 1909, Herman received a medical degree and proposed to Olga. To feed his family, he got a job in the cantonal psychiatric hospital in Müsterlingen, on the shores of Lake Baden.
In 1911, while still at university, Hermann Rorschach began experimenting with schoolchildren. With the help of ink, he tried to find out whether artistically gifted children have a better developed imagination.
He drew the corresponding conclusions on the basis of their interpretations of inkblots.
In 1912 he received his MD from the University of Zurich and has since worked in various psychiatric clinics. Together with two assistants, Rorschach had to take care of 400 patients alone. In the absence of a secretary or social worker, Herman was responsible for the entire organization of the clinic, including organizing leisure activities for patients. It was there that Rorschach began his research, which 10 years later led to the publication of his work Psychodiagnostics. The Rorschach technique is used by doctors to this day.
Hermann Rorschach never told anyone how he came up with the idea for the test. However, like many figures of the time, he often played the popular game Blotto (Clexography), in which associations associated with poetry are selected or charades are created using inkblots.
Cards with these ready-made inkblots were readily available in stores at the time.
In addition, his close personal friend and teacher Konrad Goering could suggest using these spots as a psychological tool.
Although the results of this experiment have not been preserved, the Rorschach tests significantly influenced not only Herman's further scientific activity, but also the development of psychology in general. Rorschach was not the first scientist to use inkblots in his work, but his experiments were the first to be used as an important tool for analysis.
When Eigen Bleuler coined the term "schizophrenia" in 1911, Rorschach took an interest in the subject and wrote a dissertation on hallucinations (Bleuler was the chairman of Rorschach's dissertation council). While working with patients with schizophrenia, Rorschach accidentally discovered that they react to Blotto's game differently than other people.
He gave a brief presentation of his discovery to the local psychiatric society, but that was the end of it. It was only after he opened a psychiatric practice in the Russian Krombaza hospital in Herisau in 1917 that he became interested in systematic research on Blotto's game.
In his research, which took place from 1918 to 1921, Rorschach conducted research to improve his method of studying personality traits using inkblots. Rorschach used about 40 inkblots, but regularly applied only 15 of them to his patients.
Working in a psychiatric clinic, he analyzed the perception of mentally unhealthy and emotionally unstable people. And by involving healthy people in research, he was able to create a generalized test. Ultimately, he collected data from 405 subjects (117 were not his patients and he used them as controls).
His method of scoring did not focus on the content of the responses, but on classifying the responses according to their various characteristics. To do this, he used a set of codes - today called ratings - to determine whether the answer was for the entire image (W), a large part of it (D), or a smaller part. The F score was used for the shape detail of the spot, and the C score indicated that the color of the spot was included in the answer.
In 1919-1921 he tried to find a publisher to publish his discoveries and 15 regularly used inkblot cards. However, all publishers refused to publish all 15 stain images due to the cost of printing. Finally, in 1921, he found a publisher - House of Bircher - who agreed to publish his stains, but only 10 of them. Rorschach revised his manuscript to include only 10 of the 15 most commonly used stains.
Alas, the print was not of high enough quality to accurately reproduce the original stains. The original Rorschach spots did not have halftones - they consisted of pure colors. Reproducing them on print added tints. But according to rumors, Rorschach was quite pleased with this appearance of a new addition to his spots.
In the book "Psychodiagnostics" (1921) Rorschach stated his views. In it, the scientist formulated his own theory of personality. According to her, all people are characterized by a combination of introverted and extroverted traits - they are motivated by both internal and external factors.
An extraversive type is a type of personality that predominantly determines its behavior by reasons that lie outside its "I", and an introvert builds its activity based on internal reasons inherent in its "I".
The concept of extraversion and introversion in Rorschach does not fully coincide with those of other well-known psychologists - C. Jung, G. Eysenck and others. The ratio between the parameters of introversion and extraversion (“extratension” according to Rorschach) determines the “type of experience” - the most important indicator of the test Rorschach. The type of experience indicates "how" and not "what" the individual experiences, how he interacts with his environment. Introversion is more dependent on internal experiences, extratension - on external impressions.
Rorschach believed that on the basis of the inkblot test, some of these traits could be identified and both mental deviations and strengths of a person could be identified. The predominance of kinesthetic responses (in terms of movement) in the tested person is associated with the introversive type of experience, the predominance of color responses - with the extratensive one.
In addition to establishing the general orientation of the personality (“type of experience”), the Rorschach test allows you to obtain diagnostic data on the degree of realism in the perception of reality, the emotional attitude to the world around you, the tendency to worry, anxiety, inhibiting or stimulating human activity.
After the publication of a monograph entitled the Form Interpretation Test ("Analysis of the interpretation of forms"), he died in April 1922 in the hospital, where he was admitted due to abdominal pain. Rorschach until the last refused to go to the doctor and received medical attention when diffuse (diffuse) peritonitis was discovered, caused by inflammation of the appendix. Surgeons failed to save a colleague.
When Rorschach's book went into print, psychiatrists largely ignored it, as the prevailing belief at the time was that the personality could not be analyzed or protested. At 19In 1922, experts drew attention to the Rorschach test, and at a meeting of the Psychoanalytic Society, the question of further improvement of the experiment was raised.
Herman Rorschach formally worked on his inkblot tests for only four years. Rorschach lived only 37 years before the world popularity of his test.
Rorschach scoring systems
Until the 1970s, there were five main scoring systems for people who see these spots. Two systems dominated among them - the systems of Beck and Klopfer. The other three systems were used less frequently. These were the systems of Hertz, Piotrovsky and Rapaport-Schafer. At 1969 John E Exner, Jr., published the first comparison of these five systems, called The Rorschach Systems ("Rorschach Systems").
The discovery of Exner's stunning analysis was that for Rorschach spots, there really were no five rating systems. Exner came to the conclusion that these five systems differ from each other so strongly and significantly that it can be considered that five different "Rorschach tests" were created. It's time to get back to the drawing board.
After his disturbing discovery, Exner set out to create a new, comprehensive Rorschach scoring system that would combine the best components of the five existing systems, supplemented by extensive empirical research on each component.
The work began in 1968, and as part of it, important research was carried out to create a new rating system for Rorschach spots. As a result, in 1973, Exner published the first edition of The Rorschach: A Comprehensive System. In this work, he introduced a new grading system that became the new gold standard (and the only grading system taught to psychologists today).
What does the Rorschach test measure?
The Rorschach Spot Test was not originally intended to be a projective measure of personality characteristics. Instead, he had to build a personality profile of a person with schizophrenia (or another mental disorder) based on frequency ratings.
Rorschach himself was skeptical about using his test to measure personality characteristics projectively.
The Rorschach test at its most basic level is a task that reflects the psychology of the person taking this test, and also establishes some level of understanding of the patient's past and future behavior.
Patients often use imagination to formulate an answer, but the underlying process of solving this problem has little to do with imagination or creativity.
How the Rorschach test is done
The person taking the test is presented with a card with a spot printed on it and asked, "What could it be?" Answers are usually recorded verbatim (today, recorders are used for this), because they will later be evaluated by a psychologist.
The subject's answer to the question about what is shown on the map, Exner divided into three primary phases:
* In phase 1, while the person is looking at the map, his brain encodes the stimulus (spot) and all its details. Then he classifies the stimuli and their parts, and an informal ordering (ranking) of possible responses appears in the brain.
* In phase 2, the person discards possible low-ranking answers and checks the remaining answers that seem appropriate.
* In phase 3, the person chooses some of the filtered responses based on characteristics, styles, or other sources of influence.
If a person reacts to the general contours of the spot, then, according to Exner, there is a slight projection. However, when the subject begins to embellish his answer, or adds more information than was originally provided to him, this may be a sign of a projection in progress at the moment. In other words, the person tells the psychologist something about himself, or about his life, because he goes beyond the characteristics of the spot itself.
After the patient goes through all ten spots for the first time and tells the psychologist what he sees in each spot, the psychologist should again offer the person each spot, asking the person taking the test to help the psychologist see what the person saw at the first answer. It is here that the psychologist gets certain details for a clearer understanding of what and different aspects and where exactly the subject saw in each spot.
Rorschach test score
Rorschach test score is a very difficult task that requires good preparation and experience in administering this test.
Only professional psychologists are properly trained and have the experience necessary to correctly interpret the results.
Thus, any "Rorschach test" that you can take online on the Internet, or that is performed/interpreted by a specialist in another field, may give unreliable results or be of little use.
Exner's scoring system tests every aspect of the answer, from how many spots are used to what story is associated with the answer (if provided by the answerer), to the level of detail and type of content in the answer. Evaluation begins with examining the quality of the response's elaboration—in other words, how well it is crafted, whether the response is generic, vague, or arbitrary.
The basis of the evaluation is related to the coding of the response in accordance with all the characteristics of the spot that are involved in the formation of the response.
The following characteristics are coded:
* Shape.
* Motion - Whether motion appears in the response.
* Chromatic color - when color is used in the response.
* Achromatic - when only black, white, or gray is used in the response.
* Halftone texture - when a texture is used in the response.
* Halftone Dimension - When halftone-related dimensions are used in the response.
* Halftone Scattering - When halftones are used in the answer.
* Shape dimension - when non-halftone dimensions are used in the response.
* Pairs and reflections - when pairs or reflections are used in the response.
Since many people give complex and detailed answers to the question of what they see in spots, the scoring system uses the concept of "blends" to account for complex responses. These blends take into account multiple objects or the way the object is described.
The organizational activity of the response measures how well the response is organized. Finally, it evaluates the quality of the form - that is, how well the answer matches the spot itself (depending on how the person taking the test describes it).
If the spot looks like a bear, and the person describes it as a bear, then it may have an "ordinary" quality of shape - perfectly acceptable, but not showing much creativity or originality.
There are, of course, many popular responses to spots that resemble real life objects or creatures. Exner's scoring system takes this into account by providing extensive tables for each card containing common responses and how they can be coded.
Rorschach Interpretation
After the answers to each card are correctly coded by the psychologist, an interpretative report is formulated based on the response scores. Such a report combines the results obtained from all test answers in such a way that the combined answer cannot distort the results of the test.
First, the psychologist checks the adequacy of the test, the tolerance for stress, and the amount of resources available to the person taking the test, comparing them with the requirements placed on the patient at this time.
Next, the psychologist must study the individual's cognitive activities, the accuracy of perception, the flexibility of ideas and attitudes, the ability to calm and control one's emotions, goal orientation, self-esteem and interests, as well as the relationship of these aspects with others.
There are also a number of less commonly used special indexes to measure suicidal tendencies, depression, schizophrenia and other disorders. Usually all of this can be assessed more quickly during a clinical interview, but the Rorschach test can help identify areas of concern in a patient when some questions remain.
Rorschach test: the opinion of foreign psychologists
What do you see? The answer will tell a lot about you!
For decades, the Swiss psychiatrist's Rorschach test, created in 1921, helped decipher the workings of the human mind. But now the secret is out, and psychiatrists are outraged by it.
The test was carried out on an ink pattern on 10 standard sheets of paper: ink was dripped onto the sheet, then it was folded in half and straightened - a symmetrical picture appeared.
Images were black and white, red and white, or multicolor. The test subject had to say what it looked like - the first thing that came to mind.
Some saw a pair of dancing wolves, others saw a butterfly or a man's pelvic joints. The psychiatrist got an idea of his patients depending on what they were reacting to, the shape and color, or they saw only the whole image. The test participant explained his reaction to each pattern. On the basis of what was said, a picture of the work of his brain was constructed, and conclusions were drawn about the patient's condition.
James Heilman, an emergency physician from Canada, posted 10 ink drawings of Herman Rorschach on Wikipedia. He accompanied the pictures with the most common reaction to them, angering the psychiatric community. Critics likened the publication to prematurely releasing the answers to exam questions, destroying this psychiatric test. James Heilman explained his provocation by the need to lift the ban on the discussion of the topic - from that moment the debate began.
Psychologists were worried because the information appeared on the popular Wikipedia, believing that the more material is published, the more meaningless the test results become. Some doctors believe that the test helps the patient open up in a psychoanalytic session, but it has ceased to be the main psychological method.
Psychiatrist Tony Black practiced in a particularly strict British prison Broadmoor and used the Rorschach test, but he was not happy with the results. Today, he is skeptical about the test, as there is little room for physician intuition in modern surveys and interviewing techniques.
The Wikipedia website states that the 10 ink images have been previously published in several editions, that they are in the public domain in Hermann Rorschach's homeland of Switzerland, as well as in the United States. In addition, it is not known how easy it is to study the inkblot and fool the psychiatrist.
Conclusion
The Rorschach test is not a magical way to look into a person's soul.
This is just an empirically validated method of projective measurement of personality characteristics.
It is backed up by almost four decades of modern research (after the previous four decades of its existence since it was first published in 1921).
When asked about what they see in a simple set of ten inkblots, people can often reveal a little more information about themselves than their conscious self might intend. This leads to a deeper understanding of the internal motivations of human behavior and the emergence of existing problems.
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Like other well-known psychological methods, the Rorschach test has long gone beyond the scope of psychology and psychiatry and has become part of the global mass culture. It appears in numerous literary works, comics, films, TV series, and even in fashion shows, when designers use characteristic stains in fashion lines.
VIDEO: Rorschach takes the Rorschach test
A short segment from the film "Watchmen" about a movie character named Rorschach, who takes the Rorschach test during interrogation by the criminal police.
About the events in the hero's life that changed his psychology as a person for the worse and about his associations on the Rorschach test.
Rorshah spots in clothing design:
Sources - PSYMOD.ru, Aligency.ru and Wikipedia
RORSHI and others: How can they be useful to us?
There is hardly a person who has never heard of the Rorschach test. Especially after the character of the same name was used in the popular comics, and then the movie and the computer game.
"Rorschach" is a hero in a mask, on which changeable black and white spots are constantly moving. He calls this mask his "true face". This is how the idea penetrates into mass culture that behind the appearance (behavior, status) that we present to society, something else, much closer to our essence, can be hidden. This idea is directly related to psychoanalytic practice and to the theory of the unconscious.
The Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist Hermann Rorschach created his "inkblot method" at the beginning of the 20th century to find out if there was a connection between creativity and personality type.
But soon the test began to be used for deeper, including clinical studies. It was developed and supplemented by other psychologists.
The Rorschach test is a series of ten symmetrical spots. Among them are color and black-and-white, "female" and "male" (according to the type of image, and not according to who they are intended for). Their common feature is ambiguity. There is no "original" content embedded in them, so they allow everyone to see something of their own.
The uncertainty principle
The entire testing situation is designed to give the test taker as much freedom as possible. The question put before him is rather vague: “What could it be? What does it look like?
This is the same principle used in classical psychoanalysis. Its creator, Sigmund Freud, laid the patient on the couch, and he himself was located out of sight. The patient lay on his back: this posture of defenselessness contributed to his regression, a return to earlier, childish sensations.
The invisible analyst became a "projection field", the patient turned his usual emotional reactions on him - for example, confusion, fear, search for protection. And since there was no prior relationship between analyst and patient, it became clear that these reactions were inherent in the patient's personality itself: the analyst helped the patient to notice and become aware of them.
In the same way, the indefiniteness of spots allows us to see in them those images that already existed in our mental space before: this is how the mechanism of psychological projection works.
The principle of projection
Projection was also first described by Sigmund Freud. This psychological mechanism makes us see in the outside world what actually comes from our psyche, but is not consistent with our self-image. Therefore, we attribute our own ideas, motives, moods to others ... But if we manage to detect the effect of the projection, we can “return it to ourselves”, appropriate our feelings and thoughts to ourselves already at a conscious level.
