What Is the Thematic Apperception Test?

TAT for short, compiled by American psychologist Morey. The nature of this quiz is very similar to the way pictures look at stories. During the quiz, each time a picture is given to the subject, let him compose a story based on what he sees.

Subjective perception test

In this way, the subject's inner motivation or desire, or desire, is interspersed in the story, and then these inner things are projected. ("General Psychology" Beijing Normal University Press Peng Yiling)

The theme unity test is a measurement tool developed by HA Murray for character research in 1935. There are 30 obscure black and white pictures in the full set of quizzes, and a blank card. The contents of the pictures are mainly characters or scenes. Each picture is marked with a letter number, and the pictures are combined into four sets of tests according to age and gender. Each set of 20 is divided into two series, each of which has 10 photos. Used for men, women, boys, and girls, some of which are shared. When the test is in progress, the main tester presents the pictures one by one in order, and the testee is required to tell each picture a vivid and rich story based on his own imagination and experience.

The two series of each test are performed in two. The first series usually takes one hour, and the second series is tested one day or more later. Usually, the content of the second series of pictures will be strange and complicated, and it will easily cause emotional reactions. After the completion of the second series of tests, the main test subject will have a conversation with the test subject to understand the source and basis of the story fabricated by the test subject, and use it as a reference for the result analysis.

Let the testee give more explicit meaning to the obscure pictures. On the surface, this activity of giving meaning is free. For example, in the instruction, the testee encourages the testee to imagine freely. Freely and casually telling, the storyline becomes more vivid and dramatic; in fact, Murray believes that in the process, the subject will unconsciously weave a logically coherent story based on his subconscious desires, emotions, motivations or conflicts. In this way, researchers can analyze the content of the story and capture clues to understand the specific inner world of the subject.

TAT is a personality test and cannot be used as a diagnostic tool, but some pathological characteristics of the subject can be found:

For example, if an emotionally unstable person reacts excessively to the picture after reading the picture, they can make up the story arbitrarily or interrupt the story because of emotions;

Depressed people are depressed when telling stories, their conceptual activities are blocked, and their answers to questions are short;

Forcing the thinker to describe the map in detail, which is strange, weird, with too many explanations, showing off knowledge;

The topics seen by paranoids are often suspicion, secret agents, sneaking, inferring the motivation of the subject, explaining that the pictures are too moral;

People with schizophrenia often tell stories with delusional content, absurd fantasies, out-of-social phenomena, inconsistencies, content that is too deliberated, symbolic or ambiguous, or homosexuality, sexual anomalies, and prohibited violations.