Some psychologists prefer unstructured projective methods to self-
report questionnaires for very different reasons. McClellend (1980) dis -
tinguished between what he called operant andrespondent tests. The for -
mer consist of materials—a picture, a blank sheet of paper, a sentence
fragment—that the subject can organize and interpret for him- or her -
self; the pictures on TAT cards are the primary example. Respondent
tests are exemplified by questionnaire items in which the subject mustrespond within a strictly limited number of alternative ways to a fixedset of items. McClelland objected that this regimentation, which makesscoring of respondent tests so convenient, introduces artificiality . Anolder individual, for example, might find all the items in a test designedfor college students irrelevant to her, though if urged she would still fillit out. What would the responses mean in that case? Operant tests arenot subject to this criticism. The subject can always make a picture rele -
vant by choosing what elements to respond to, or by creating a story
that goes beyond the picture toward whatever concerns he or she has.Similarly , McGuire (1984) argued that psychologists should study thespontaneous self-concept, as revealed in free descriptions, to learn howindividuals really see themselves.
Jane Loevinger made a different point in defending her choice of a
sentence completion test to measure ego development. What is of pri-mary interest, she maintained, is not so much what the person decidesas how he or she makes the decision. Asking the subject to completestems (e.g., “What I like best about being a man is . . .”) gives the re-searcher an opportunity to observe how the subject will structure andorganize his responses, free from the prompting of the investigator.Since it is the processing of the ego that Loevinger wants to measureand since most situations in life present the same ambiguity as picturesor half-formed sentences, it can be argued that tests that simulate theseconditions should give the best picture of the ego at work. In effect,such tests provide samples of ego functioning, rather than reports abouthow the individual thinks he or she is.
There are thus three major lines of argument about the superiority
of projective tests over questionnaires: The first holds that the real per -
sonality is hidden from the subject and can only be inferred indirectly
from signs and symbols that the trained psychologist must interpret.The second claims that structured questionnaires are often irrelevantand only unstructured material can convey an accurate representationof the individual’s nature. The third argument supposes that personalityis best assessed by observation of its workings in an unstructured situa -152 PERSONALITY IN ADULTHOOD