“Tell me what you see,” the psychiatrist says to my 6 year old brother, as she pulls out a small white card with marks of black printed on its front. This is the classic beginning of the Rorschach test, a psychological experiment conducted to analyze how a person acts and responds to external stimuli; “then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a person's personality characteristics and emotional functioning” [as it was done to my brother] in order to detect underlying thought disorder, especially in cases where patients are unable to describe their thinking processes clearly and openly.
When the test was done to my brother, I did not know about it much- to me, it was a waste of time, a way to make my brother start crying and get emotionally upset. I did not believe that he had some kind of psychological problems, that’s why I kept insisting my parents to take me inside the treatment room, each time the doctors did some kind of procedure to my brother. But now, as I learn more and more and view the test from different perspectives, I find the hidden “artificial” yet “obvious” truth behind the test.
Although, most people believe that the test only deals with what a person says he sees on each of the ten white cards presented to him, it actually takes into account a multitude of factors regarding response time and physical interaction with the card, thus hoping to reveal a piece of the person’s personality and how he thinks. The question is how such a simple test can dig into the depths of people’s minds.
When I was younger, I was definitely one of these people who could not see how the Rorschach test had the power to reveal so much of one’s ident...
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... that changes his perspective. It was only a culmination of his growing identity and knowledge that allowed me to revisit the Rorschach test and see differently than before. Perhaps that’s the power of seeing in action—it allows us to pinpoint what we already know, and upon seeing something differently, it challenges us to think differently and begin changing what we know and who we are as well.
Works Cited
Dillard, Annie. “Seeing.” Advanced College Essay: NYU-Poly. Elisa Linksy and Pat C. Hoy II. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2013. Print.
Isaacson, Walter. “And One More Thing…” Advanced College Essay: NYU-Poly. Elisa Linksy and Pat C. Hoy II. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2013. Print.
Percy, Walker. “The Loss of Creature” Advanced College Essay: NYU-Poly. Elisa Linksy andPat C. Hoy II. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2013. Print.
Berger, John. "Way of Seeing." Berger, John. Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers. Ed. David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky. Ninth Edition. Bedford/St.Martin, 2011. 141-160.
In 1963, Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment that was one of the most controversial of his time, and of ours. “The subjects—or ‘teachers’—were instructed to administer [electroshocks] to a human ‘learner,’ with the shocks becoming progressively more powerful and painful” (Collins, para. 1, Book Overview). The subjects watched as the “learner” was strapped into a chair. When the experimenter asked if either of the two had a question, the “learner” mentioned he had a heart problem. The “teacher” heard this, as well, and still continued to go through with the experiment. told that they were to read a series of paired words, and “learners”
First, Charlie takes the Rorschach Test, in which he has to identify inked pictures posted on white cards. Imagination plays a big part in the Rorschach Test. This is very difficult for Charlie, since he cannot use his imagination in the way people expect him to, because he sees everything as it is.
Drown, E., & Sole, K. (2013). Writing college research papers (2nd ed.). San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
The results Tyler received from the Rorschach Inkblot Test explain him fairly well, with just a few surprises here and there. The first personality trait Tyler expressed in his test was imagination. He has the ability to see animals or other objects moving proving he has a brain for imagination. A fine example of this is in picture #2 when his response was a lizard walking through a puddle. His responses also indicate that he shows emotion toward others as well as about others or things. The test shows his emotion because he used color to explain what he saw. The color affected his thoughts and made the images seem clearer of what they exactly were. Tyler gave a few negative responses, or in other words violent responses. An example of this
This chapter focuses on David Rosenhan and his experiment on determining if psychologists can correctly diagnose patients in a hospital setting(sane vs insane). Rosenhan was inspired to embark on this experiment after hearing from his friend that many soldiers tried to avoid the Vietnam War draft by faking mental illnesses. This experiment was centered around Rosenhan and how he recruited eight of his friends as pseudopatients to take part in this experiment in where the pseudopatients faked their way into a hospital during the month of October. Before the experiment, the pseudopatients practiced faking symptoms and pretending to consume medications. Furthermore, all of the pseudopatients possessed the same symptom of pretending to hear a voice in their head making a “thud” sound, but once they enter the hospital, the voice disappears. The voice for each of the pseudopatients matches the sex of the patients themselves. When Rosenhan went to the
The first idea of a test was created when Alfred Binet was asked to be a member of the Free Society for the Psychological Psychology at the Sorbonne. His group was appointed to the Commission for the Retarded. They were asked, “What should be the test given to children thought to possibly have learning disabilities, that might place them in a spe...
Hoggart, Simon. “Beauty and the beasts.” The Spectator. ProQuest, 31 July 2010. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.
It is amazing to look back and realize that this experiment was done to determine how the Nazis could all have so much hate towards the Jewish people. The lack of compassion towards humans shown by the Nazi Germans during the holocaust inspired Milgram to conduct this experiment. He was curious on how any sane human being could want to participate in genocide of an entire group of people. It’s incredible to know that something like the Nazi war could bring about such valuable information to psychology. For years Milgram’s theory has been one of the primary points of social psychology. Because of the results revealed after Milgram’s creative design, psychologists use this information today to describe certain behaviors in people. I believe it is fair to say that Stanley Milgram has had one of the largest impacts in the history of social psychology.
By not cherishing the gift of sight and using it properly, many discoveries are left unfound. In the writing piece, Seeing, Annie Dillard speaks of nature and the small things that we all are unconsciously blind to and not appreciative of. Seeing explores the idea of what it means to truly see things in this world. Annie Dillard’s main point is that we should view the world with less of a meddling eye, so that we are able to capture things that would otherwise go unnoticed. There’s a science to how we view things in nature.
2. Projective tests are tests that assess the unconscious processes by focusing on defense mechanisms. There are three types of projective tests, which include; the Rorschach Inkblot Test, the Thematic Apperception Test, and the Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank. First, the Inkblot test portrays symmetrical inkblot cards to an individual, this test is used to get a better understanding of that individual’s unconscious feelings and struggles. Next, the Thematic Apperception
Have you ever looked at the clouds and seen images? Well, there is a test called the Rorschach that uses a series of inkblots the reveal information about a person. The Rorschach has been around for a long time and, many people are for it while a lot are against it. There is a lot of controversy surrounding the Rorschach test. The article by Erica Goode, “What’s in an Inkblot? Some say Not Much,” is an article that reveals the controversy surrounding the Rorschach test, a test to reveal one’s personalities. There are many pros and cons about the use of the Rorschach test.
Frey, Darcy. “The Last Shot.” Reading and Writing the College Experience. Huron Valley Publishing: Ypsilanti, 2003. 171 – 192.