The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is a projective psychological test that is commonly used to assess a person’s personality traits, motivations, and interpersonal dynamics. The test was developed by Henry A. Murray and Christiana D. Morgan in the 1930s.
During the TAT, the participant is shown a series of ambiguous pictures and asked to create stories about each picture. The stories they generate are thought to reveal unconscious thoughts, desires, conflicts, and emotional experiences. The stories are then analysed by a trained clinician or psychologist to identify recurring themes, patterns, and underlying psychological factors.
The TAT is based on the assumption that people project their own emotions, attitudes, and conflicts onto the ambiguous stimuli, providing insights into their personality and internal world. The test is typically administered individually and may consist of multiple picture cards, with the participant being asked to create a story for each card.
The interpretation of the TAT is subjective and relies heavily on the expertise and experience of the clinician. The stories and themes identified in the narratives are analysed to understand the individual’s motivations, interpersonal relationships, defense mechanisms, and areas of potential psychological distress.
How TAT works?
The logic behind the test working is that subjects tend to interpret or describe ambiguous situations based on their own past experiences and motivations in the form stories. This could either be conscious or subconscious. The rationale behind the successful implementation of the test is that the subject lowers his/her guard to the examiner while depicting the story. This then leads to divulging of much-valuable information about the subject.
The test is often applied on individuals in a group as a series of tests to analyse and evaluate their personality. TAT test has been successfully administered to pinpoint information about a person’s view of the world and his other attitudes towards others and the self.
Through the stories the subjects tell about the pictures, the examiner elicits information like the subject’s expectations in life, relationship with friends and family, viewpoint towards the elderly and younger ones and so on.
Other than the stories itself, the examiner also evaluates the manner in which the subject depicts the story. Factors like voice tone, body signs, posture, hesitations and various other signs are also taken into consideration.
For example, a person might be hesitant to tell a story if it relates with her family. She might avoid telling it and will make up an excuse like she doesn’t like the card. Her hesitation indicates the subject to have family issues.
Whom TAT is applied on?
TAT is often applied on individuals to assess them one by one in order to deem their worthiness for a certain job. The sectors that require their job prospects to be evaluated with TAT usually demand dealing with people and ability to cope with psychological stress on a day-to-day basis. For example: law enforcement, medical field, military, diplomatic service, and so on.
TAT is also applied on people with mental issues, in order to diagnose them for their psychological problems. TAT helps identify the personality of such individuals, thus helping them to receive appropriate treatment.
As a part of research, TAT have also been administered on individuals who have had traumatic experiences in the past.
Another part of research focused on administering individuals involved in violent crimes, like series of sexual assaults, serial murders and so on. The results indicated that such individuals had different personality from the normal, and was also somewhat identical to other individuals involved in similar crimes.