tion. All would concur in the belief that answers to personality invento -
ries are largely irrelevant.
Problems in Projective Methods
Historically , these arguments have been very powerful. Projective meth -
ods continue to be among the most widely used of psychological tests in
practice and in research (Lubin, Larsen, Matarazzo, & Seever, 1985).For many years, however, psychometricians and those who have re -
viewed the empirical literature have repeatedly pointed to serious prob -
lems in projective methods, most recently in a monograph published by
the American Psychological Society (Lilienfeld, Wood, & Garb, 2000).Our examination of the issue has led us to side with the critics, but thereader should realize that this is a controversial, sometimes unpopularposition to take.
What kinds of problems do projective and other unstructured tests
pose? They are highly inferential, ignore other factors that contribute toresponses, are unreliable over time, and are inadequate as samples ofbehavior. The bottom line is that they frequently fail to show evidenceof external validity; that is, they do not predict the kinds of outcomesthey are supposed to.
Clinicians in the psychoanalytic tradition are trained to seek out
the hidden meanings behind such seemingly innocuous or meaninglessphenomena as dreams, slips of the tongue, or word associations. TheRorschach inkblots were designed to provide standard ambiguous stim -
uli onto which the patient could project his or her inner conflicts andfixations, and clinicians were supposed to interpret these responses in
terms of dynamic theories of symbolic expression. A skilled interpretercan often create a persuasive reading of inkblot responses, but it is usu -
ally impossible to tell if the interpretation is correct. We certainly would
not want to trust peer or spouse ratings in such a case, since few friendsor relatives are competent to judge the degree of oral fixation or intru -
sion of the anima. The most promising test of the quality of an interpre -
tation is its agreement with the interpretations of other qualified clini -
cians; yet extensive research has typically yielded little evidence of
agreement on inferences about the so-called deep level of personality .Mischel (1968) put it this way:
Statements about “deep-seated unconscious anxieties,” “latent homosex -
ual tendencies,” “reaction formations,” and other similar inferences aboutEgo Psychologies and Projective Methods 153