Empirical test of the "levels" hypothesis with five projective techniques.

Citation

Murstein, B. I., & Wolf, S. R. (1970). Empirical test of the "levels" hypothesis with five projective techniques. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 75(1), 38-44.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0028784

Abstract

Tested the "levels" hypothesis that there is an inverse relationship between the degree of stimulus structure in a test and the level of personality impulse-control system being tapped by the test, for 20 normal and 20 psychiatric Ss. As predicted, an inverse relationship between pathology and stimulus structure over 5 tests (from low-high structure Draw-a-Person, Rorschach, TAT, Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank, and Bender-Gestalt) was found for normals. Contrary to hypothesis, no such relationship appeared for psychiatric Ss. Other hypotheses that psychiatric Ss manifest more projection and more pathology than normals, and that there is a significant correlation between pathology and projection for every test for each group were confirmed. A new theory of projection of pathology as a function of the stimulus structure of tests is proposed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)