Rorschach Inkblot Test
a projective technique in which the participant is presented with 10 unstructured inkblots (half in black and gray and half including color) and is asked “What might this be?” The examiner classifies the responses according to such structural and thematic (content) factors as color (C), movement (M), detail (D), whole (W), popular or common (P), animal (A), form (F), and human (H). Various scoring systems, either qualitative or quantitative, are used. The object is to interpret the participant’s personality structure in terms of factors such as emotionality, cognitive style, creativity, impulse control, and various defensive patterns. Perhaps the best known—and certainly one of the most controversial—assessment instruments in all of psychology, the Rorschach is widely used and has been extensively researched, with results ranging from those that claim strong support for its clinical utility (e.g., for selecting treatment
modalities or monitoring patient change or improvement over time) to those that demonstrate little evidence of validity. [developed in the early 1920s by Hermann Rorschach]