RORSCHACH HUMAN MOVEMENT AND ATTITUDES TOWARD SPACE EXPLORATION

Abstract

Sumnzary.-The relationship between weak or strong Rorschach human movement responses and actimdes toward space explorations was studied. A group of 104 teachers and school administrators were given first a Space Exploration Scale, which was intended to tap attirudes toward expansive behavior, and then three M responses were elicited on Card 111. The 144 responses were rated independently by three judges as depicting either weak or strong activity. Only those 70 Ss for whom there was unanimous agreement were used for comparison analyses. Although there was some tendency for Ss who produced strong M to be more positive in their space exploration attitudes than Ss who produced weak M, the difference was not statistically significant. Many Rorschach studies yielding negative findings may be understood on the basis that the experimenter attempted to validate a Rorschach hypothesis by employing overt behavioral criteria. The argument presented against such an approach is that the prediction of overt behavior is not necessarily an adequate test of the validity of a projective method (Korner, 1950; Ainsworch, 1954). The proponents of this view maintain that the Rorschach technique provides valuable clues concerning the internal organization of the personality and often taps fantasy material that may not have direct representation in behavior which is observable to others. While this contention appears to have merit, it should be possible to establish a relationship in validational studies of the Rorschach between specific Rorschach construccs and dispositions to respond in certain ways, whether or not these tendencies result in direct overt behavior. In other words, the least that can be expected from the Rorschach is that determinants to which interpretive values are assigned by clinicians relate meaningfully to the mental position taken by the individual in relation to the behavior in question. It seems, therefore, that attitudes held toward partic~~lar issues, since they represent behavioral dispositions that do not necessarily correspond to actual behavior, would constitute very useful criteria in validational studies of projective techniques. The present study investigated the relationship between the quality of the Rorschach human movement (M) response and an attitz~de toward a specific topic rather than to the acti~al overt behavior. The M is regarded by many clinicians to be one of the most significant scoring variables on the Rorschach. Not only is the quantity of M considered to be