Applied life-span construct model by administering life drawing to 78 older women. Quantitative findings indicated that more positively adjusted women maintained external locus of control, were future oriented, and defined life-span in terms of family. Qualitative data revealed that women who described their lives in positive terms were those who…

Surveys 105 adolescent mothers at approximately two months postpartum, using the Child Abuse Potential Inventory (CAP), to assess the reliability and the value of using this measure. The results determined that reliabilities were low for the CAP abuse scale. It concludes that further research is needed to understand the psychometric properties of…

Investigates the validity of the Roberts Apperception Test for Children (RATC) by examining the appropriateness of the standardization norms with other nonclinical samples. Findings suggest that the children in this study form a separate and distinct group from the well-adjusted children upon which the RATC scales were normed and supports previous…

Although the suicide rate of young adults has increased dramatically, few empirical studies examine suicide in the normal population. To examine suicidal thinking and behavior in a college student sample, 43 female and 23 male college students responded to an adverse life event scenario and then filled out an extended questionnaire regarding…

Evaluated the attitudes toward life and death held by 52 suicidal and 58 normal children, by means of quantitative responses to questions that followed fairy-tale stories. Results indicated that the suicidal children, in contrast to normal children, showed a high degree of repulsion by life and attraction to death. (LLL)

Based upon a sample of 1,428 randomly selected adults, this study provided evidence regarding the appropriateness of the Thematic Apperception Test in assessing interpersonal processes and examined whether the individual concerns expressed by respondents reflect their covert needs or their behavioral inclinations. (Author/PN)

Testing with a battery of naturalistic stories found that the 24 subjects with autism were impaired (compared to normal and mentally disabled controls) at providing context-appropriate mental state explanations for the story characters' nonliteral utterances. Even those autistic subjects who performed well on standard Theory of Mind tasks showed…

This paper discusses two techniques for improving the predictive validity of personality measures: (1) measuring dispositional levels of private self-consciousness, that is, one's tendency to habitually reflect on covert aspects of the self such as thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and motives; and (2) priming trait-relevant knowledge (temporarily…

The predicted decline in usefulness and emphasis of projective techniques was analyzed from several different perspectives including the academic community, members of the American Psychological Association (APA) Division 12, internship centers, the applied clinical setting, and private practitioners. In addition, an extensive review of empirical,…

This paper defines a personality construct, the "others-concept," as "a person's general expectancies or perceptions about other people along a positive-negative continuum." This construct helps conceptualize how predictions and assumptions about possible social interactions are made when the amount of information concerning…

Using play constructions as a projective technique of investigation, Erik Erikson (1951) concluded from his observation of preadolescents that, during this developmental period, play constructions are largely determined by psychosexual differences. Erikson suggested that only observation of subjects in a younger and older developmental period…

According to Duke and Newicki, the distance maintained by a subject towards an approach stimulus is closely related to the internal structures of his personality. The test puts the subject's projective personality and the perception that the group has of the subject into relief. Duke and Newiski's "Comfortable Interpersonal Distance"…

Psychological testing as an area has perhaps evoked more controversy and heated emotion than has any other area within the fields of psychology and counseling. Part of the reason for this has to do with the inherent complexity and difficulty of the task of assessing human abilities, emotions and achievements. But beyond this basic issue, an…

This study examines four hypotheses concerning the nature of fear of success (FOS). Data were gathered in two stages. First, respondents in a large sample survey of metropolitan Detroit area residents were asked to tell a Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) story. In the second stage, white currently-married females aged 18 to 56 whose households…

A test consisting of slides of ambiguous school situations was designed for measuring racial attitudes in children. For each slide, the subject is asked to choose which child initiated or is the recipient of a positive or negative event. The instrument was standardized on 547 black and white urban, public school children at the first, second,…