Thematic Apperception Test

By : Lukman Nul Hakim
I. AIM
To study the personality dynamics of the subject using Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

II. INTRODUCTION
Thematic Apperception Test is a projective technique wherein the subject is asked to tell a story, which is suggested by a series of 19 pictures that are relatively unstructured, and is meant to project needs, emotions, conflict, en so forth of the subject. (Chaplin, 1993)
TAT was first publish by Murray in 1935 under the head “a method for investigating fantasies: The Thematic Apperception Test” in archives of neurology and psychiatry. Later on, Murray & Morgan (1938) working at Harvard Psychological Clinic published a book, Exploration in personality, in which details of analysis of TAT appeared. According to Murray the purpose of TAT is to reveal ‘some of the dominant drives, emotions, sentiments, complexes and conflicts of personality. (Singh, 1998)
Not only this test been used much more widely than other story construction techniques, but it has also served as a model for the development of later instrument in this class. (Anastasi, 1961)
TAT is a method of revealing to the trained interpreter some of the dominant drives, emotions, sentiments, complexes and conflicts of a personality. Special value resides in its power to expose the underlying inhibited tendencies which the subjects, or patients, is not willing to admit, or can not admit because he is unconscious of them.
The TAT will be found useful in any comprehensive study of personality, and in the interpretation of behavior disorders, psychosomatic illnesses, neuroses and psychoses. As now constituted it is not suitable for children under four years of age. The technique is especially recommended as a preface to a series of psychotherapeutic interviews or to a short psychoanalysis. Since the TAT and the Rorschach yield complementary information, the combination of these two tests, as Harrison and others have pointed out, is peculiarly effective.
The procedure is merely that of presenting a series of pictures to a subject and encouraging him to tell stories about them, invented on the spot of the moment. The fact that stories collected in this way often reveal significant components of personality is dependent on the prevalence of two psychological tendencies: the tendency of people to interpret an ambiguous human situation in conformity with their past experiences and present wants, and the tendency of those who write stories to do likewise: draw on the fund of their experiences and express their sentiments and needs, whether conscious or unconscious.
If the pictures are presented as a test of imagination, the subject’s interest, together with his need for approval, can be so involved in the task that he forgets his sensitive self and the necessity of defending it against the probings of the examiner, and , before he knows it he has said things about an invented character that apply to him self, things which he would have been reluctant to confess in response to a direct question.
Singh (1998) said that two terms are worth mentioning, namely, thematic and apperception. The term thematic has been derived from the term thema which refers to a subject or topic on which a person thinks, speaks or writes. Murray has defined the thema in a much broader sense which of cousr includes the above meaning. According to him thema is defined as an interaction of the need and press variable. Murray has defined need as a hypothetical process within the organism, which stimulates him into either covert or overt action. Similarly, Murray (1971) has defined press as a force in the environment, which may facilitate or interfere in the satisfaction of the need of the organism.

Description of The Test
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) method consists of thirty pictures plus one blank card. The cards are used in various combinations, depending upon sex and age. Some are used with all subjects, while others are used with only one sex group or age group. The maximum number of pictures used with any subject is twenty, usually administered in two sessions, ten each time. In actual clinical practice, however, examiners frequently use only ten cards, selected for particular case.
It has been found that (1) that pictures are effective in stirring the imagination; (2) that they serve to force the subject to deal, in his own way, with certain classical human situations; and finally (3) that the advantages of using standard stimuli are here, as in other tests, considerable.

III. METHOD
Preliminaries of the Subject :
Name : V
Age : 19 years old
Class : BA
Sex : Female
Condition : Normal
Place : A class in Psychology Department
Jamia Millia Islamia University

Materials Used :
The following material was used in this test :
a. Ten pictures of TAT
b. One blank card
c. Paper and pencil
d. Stopwatch

Precautions
In order to get an optimum result, the following precautions were carefully taken when conducting this test :
a. The test was conducted in a peaceful and comfortable place.
b. The testee was not unnecessarily be disturbed.
c. Tester tries to minimize tester bias by not giving any unnecessary comments while testee doing the test.

Procedure and Administration
Here is the step-by-step procedure in conducting the test:
a. Rapport formation, a brief conversation was held with testee to make her feel comfortable with the test situation.
b. Give the instruction.
c. Show the pictures one by one, five minutes each, until 11 pictures.
d. After the test was over tester ask several questions to probe the stories the testee has made.
e. Ask testee to fill personal data.
f. Tell testee that tester might will contact her again if there is anything, which is unclear.
g. Thanking the subject.

The Instructions given to the testee are as follows :
“This is a test of imagination, one form of intelligence. I am going to show you some pictures, one at time, and your task will be to make up as dramatic a story as you can for each. Tell what has led up to the event shown in the picture, describe what is happening at the moment, what the characters are feeling and thinking; and then give the outcome. Speak your thought as they come to your mind. Do you understand? Since you have fifty minutes for ten pictures, you can devote about five minutes to each story. Here is the first picture.”

Introspective report
After the conduction of the test, tester tries to probe and get comments from testee. Testee said “this test is a very boring one, because the pictures are not interesting”. She added “the last card (the blank card) is really truly telling about my self”. “I think I mentioned so much about death, and that is because I am so much influenced with the novel I am reading”. But on the next day, in a relax conversation, tester try to stimulate a discussion about death to testee, and she admit that whenever she is in a deep depressed, she sometimes have the thought to kill her self.

IV. RESULT

Data
Subject is 19 years old, single, she lives in a quite distance place from JMI, it takes approximately 2 hour to her house in Dwarka New Delhi. The girl who spends all her school years in Colombia Foundation School before studying in JMI for bachelor degree, loves to read books, listening music, chatting with people, roaming around and making friends. She was top in her class until 8th standard, and won many prizes in debates, singing, and dancing competition.
Subject’s parents Mr. and Mrs. V both are still working for government service. She has one younger brother of 17 years old who is now taking his bachelor first year. Subject describe herself as a person who is friendly, lively, straightforward, down to earth, short tempered and ambitious. And her goals for this life are to become a very good human being and a very good psychologist.

On the next page, the verbatim and the data sheet is presented.

Summary Data From Verbatim and Data Sheet
Six of the hero mentions by the subject are female, three couples, and two male.
The needs occur are 6 dejection, 5 need of intraggression, 4 needs of sex, 3 emotional change, 3 need of succorance, 1 need of affiliation, 1 need of aggression, and 1 need of achievement.
The press are 7 lack loss: loss; 4 affiliation: emotional; 2 press of dominance: coercion; 1 dominance: restraint; 1 rejection.

And from the eleven outcomes, six of them are positive and five are negative.
The themas are all logic and most of them are simple (only two of them complex).
The stories she wrote is a combination of her own thought and some part of the stories is influenced by the book she is reading.

Hero
Six of the heroes mentioned by the subject are female, three couples, and two male.
Three heroes from the eleven stories are death. The first death is on the second story, the hero; a beautiful girl name Lisa got a severe leukemia. There are also some other deaths (not the hero); it’s the death of a partner of the hero, a dog and a son. So, in total there are 6 death; and subject used 11 death word.
I also find that subject use so many words about separation, its 12 words. And also she mention 6 times about disability to socialize.
Subject also tells a lot about relationship, love and marriage. In total she wrote 11 words about it.

Need
The needs occur are: 6 dejection, 5 need of intraggression, 4 needs of sex, 3 emotional change, 3 need of succorance, 1 need of affiliation, 1 need of aggression, and 1 need of achievement. Most of need describe by subject has 5 score of strength.
Disappointment, depression, sorrow, grief, unhappiness, melancholy and despair seem to be the feelings that dominate the subject. And subject has many ways to express this feeling, like the story of second picture, she describe the subject was having an un-permitted relationship, anyhow they then married and get financial problem, having severe leukemia and end up with death.
A similar story comes up from the fourth picture. The story begins with an arranged marriage, across many differences, friction, separation, extramarital affair, and finally end up with the girl’s suicide. Meanwhile in the eight story, it is the girl’s partner who is dead, this time the dead is because of accident, but in the end of the story, it is said that the girl can finally recovered from grief and smile while remembering the past. The same case happens with the ninth story. It is about a serious relationship, but then the boy ditch her, not being able to accept this condition she want to commit suicide but a friend can relief her pain and she finally can enjoy back her life.
The story from the five and six card also tell about separation but in different way, not related to love relationship as in the above stories, it is about losing a child. The missing child is a boy in the fifth and tenth story, and a girl in sixth. Not like in the fifth and tenth story in which the child is dead, in sixth story the child is lost, even though they can find her back in the end. In the tenth story actually there are two deaths. At first the couple’s son, and then their dog.
Need of achievement is showed in the eleventh story. The story claimed by subject as her real life. Subject mentioned about a very high dream she has, and the willing to reach the peak of her life, but just after she said about it she then tells about things that might block her way, namely distraction, never get 100%, feeling exhausted.
Nine of eleven needs has strength of level 5, means it is high.
Press
The press are 7 lack loss: loss; 4 affiliation: emotional; 2 press of dominance: coercion; 1 dominance: restraint; 1 rejection.
The press dominates subject is loss, as told in need sub title above, subject frequently tells about losing someone or something, death of loved subject. This loss of love one is highly correlated to affiliation and emotional need that unfulfilled.
In her story, the environmental situation frequently creates separation and loss. Two times parents figure contribute to her life, and they both end up with sadness, on the second story they make the girl and the boy got separated, and on the fourth story the girl get an arranged marriage (usually it is the parents who arrange it), but it is failed to separation.
There are also three stories about losing child. First, an old woman whose son is dead, then a couple who lost their daughter but finally able find back, then an elderly couple who lost their son, he is dead. The two boys in those stories are dead, meanwhile the girl, even though lost at first but then can be found back.
Nine of the press has the level of 5, one is at four level, which is also high, and only one with level two. We can sum up that press force subject highly.

Outcome
Six of the stories end up with happiness and five with sadness. All the stories tell about problematic life.
Thema
All the eleven stories are logic. Six of them are simple stories meanwhile the rest are complex.

V. INTERPRETATION

By this Analysis sub title tester tries to portray three side of subject. They are, subject’s personality; subject toward her family; subject developmental level;
Subject is an intelligent girl, it is shown with her logic stories. She has rich vocabulary to describe many things, it usually occur to people who like to read, and it is in fact synchronize with her hobby and her achievements, being top in her class; winning a debate contest; singing and dance competition as stated on the tenth chapter, data of the subject.
Subject claimed herself as a person who is ambitious, having a high dream, willing to reach the peak of her life, but experimenter find a contradiction with most of her stories. Like on the eleventh story, right after telling of her ambitions she mentioned the negative things, like distraction; never get 100%; and feeling exhausted. Interestingly even though 6 of the stories end up with happiness but mostly its after having a problematic, full of tears life. And note that 5 of the stories end up with sad ending.
The possibility about those contradiction is, may be as said by Erickson that someone in adolescence stage (12 – 19 age) are in stage of identity vs confusion, they are searching for their identity, they face anxiety and pressures related to their need to make decisions about her future. Subject has dreams about her future, but in the same time she is having the anxiety, she is worried about it.
Experimenter assumes that she is a pessimistic person as showed in her pessimistic stories.

Experimenter found that subject give two contradictive version about ‘the dead stories’. As stated in chapter IX, introspective report. Right after completion of the test subject admitted that there are so many death in her stories, and it happens because she was reading a novel and somehow it influence her TAT test, but on the next day, in a relax conversation she said that when she is in a deep depressed she sometimes has the thought to kill her self. It shows that she has tried to do a defense mechanism, may be right after writing her story she then realize that her story contain too many death, and since she is also a psychology department student she know that this kind of test (TAT) must be something to measure her personality, and death story is somehow ‘not a good story’, and it threatened herself, so she did this defense mechanism to protect herself.
Some indications show that she is not very co-operative with the test. Such as, her story contain in average 135 words, meanwhile manual said it should at least 140 words per-story (even though the discrepancy is not too significant); And two times she did not mentioned a part of the picture. For example on the first story she did not mention anything about violin, and also on the second picture she missed the pregnant woman. Some possibilities cause this, maybe because she did not like picture, or maybe because she did the test at 4 pm, after the class, she might be tired and she said that she was a little bit afraid to be late reach home.
There is a tendency (even just a little) that her parent is a kind that determines what the children have to do (see: third paragraph of press sub title). Subject seems to be closer to her father then mother, or at least she expect that way, meanwhile her mother closer to her younger brother and she somehow envy her brother, this feeling seems to be quite strong. We can see that from the stories. Two stories tell about dead boys in a family, but when there is a missing girl story, the girl will be found back in the end.
According to Erickson’s developmental theory adolescence stage is the period of identity versus confusion it is between 12 to 19 years old. This stage begin with the advent of puberty, and they begin to search for their own personal identity.
Erickson (in Mangal, 2005) assert that at this stage, the adolescent’s search by questioning and redefining her own socio-psychological identity established during earlier stages is definitely linked with (a) her sudden and rapid bodily changes, and (b) anxiety and pressures related to her need to make decisions about her future education and career. Consequently, the adolescent tries to search for her new role and identity. She experiments with various sexual, occupational and educational roles to understand who she is and what she can be.
Next stage is early adulthood stage, it is the period of intimacy versus isolation (20 to 45 years). During this stage the individual tends to develop a sense of intimacy or commitment to a close relationship with another person. The individual seeks to form close personal attachments by merging her identity with that of another person. The relationship develop into such a close involvement that he tends to risk even the loss of her ego or image as is evidenced in the harmonious relationships between husband and wife and intimate friends, and in the ideal relationships between a teacher and his pupil. The ultimate sense of intimacy is clearly visible in terms of the mutual identity experienced at the time of simultaneous organs in sexual intercourse with a loved partner of the opposite sex. Another form of such intimacy is seen in sacrifices made for one’s close friends or for members of one’s family. (Mangal, 2005)
From subjects stories we can see that subject is already enter the early adulthood stage. Many stories tell about developing relationship with another person.

SUMMARY
From the eleven stories made by the subject there is a red line we can sum up.
Subject is now in the –so called by Erickson- adolescence stage, she is trying to find her own personal identity, she is in confusion about her role, her future. Subject has also enter the early adulthood stage, the stage of relationship, commitment, and marriage with opposite sex.
Subject has huge dreams, but in the same time she is worried whether she can achieve all those things or not.
Subject has a relative fragile personality, she is not so tough yet, may be because she is still in developing stage.
At last, tester would like to emphasize that this TAT analyze is far from good, even thought tester has tried to do the best. Many mistakes might have taken place in the analyze because this is one of the exercise in Psychological Testing subject.