Projective tests

Founded on the assumption that responses by subjects to ambiguous ‘test’ stimuli and other relatively unstructured tasks will elicit data revealing subjects’ basic, unconscious personality characteristics.

A proposition which should be viewed as misguided and unsubstantiated in light of decades of research strongly suggesting that the so-called tests have little evidential basis for the way in which they are supposed to ‘work’ – of dubious efficacy – such assessment techniques are highly reliant upon the assessor’s subjective impressions and interpretations.

Examples include the House-Tree-Person, Draw-a-Person, and Rorschach ‘tests’.

(see also: Psychometrics, illusory correlation, pattern-seeking, Distinguishing Science and Pseudo-science)