PERSONALITYin bed, eyes closed, with a man standing nearby, hand over his face. A
male respondent who told a story in which the man had murdered the
woman would be perceived by a psychologist as harbouring hostility
towards women.
Another traditional measure that still generates a great deal of contro-
versy to this day is the Rorschach inkblot test. Users of this test are
instructed to look at a series of inkblots and to describe what they see.
Their answers are scored according to the parts of the blot that they focus
on; the shape, movement and colour that they perceive; and the content
they recognize in the blot, such as an anatomical feature or animal. Many
psychologists, especially in the US, remain convinced of the value of the
Rorschach. However, the test is rarely used in other countries (such as
the UK) and many scientifically-oriented psychologists are extremely
critical of its continued use. The controversy reached boiling point in
2009 when a Canadian physician published all ten of the official inkblots
on Wikipedia. Defenders of the test were outraged and complained that
the Internet leak would render the tool useless.
A doctor at New York’s Montefiore Medical Center using the Rorschach
personality test to establish whether a patient’s headaches have a psychological
origin.