Defensive projection in thematic apperceptive stories.
Item
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Title
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Defensive projection in thematic apperceptive stories.
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Identifier
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AAI9807916
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identifier
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9807916
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Creator
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Clancy, Jeanne M.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Charles P. Smith
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Date
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1997
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Personality | Psychology, Psychometrics
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Abstract
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This research investigates the validity of P. Cramer's (1991b) Defense Mechanism Manual (DMM) for scoring defensive projection in the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) by attempting to differentiate between TAT stories from subjects who were angry and defensive, and from subjects who were pretending to be angry but had no reason to be defensive. This experiment is a modified replication and extension of the P. Cramer (1991a) study of anger and defense mechanisms.;The subjects were 89 men and 129 women college students, ages 17 to 23 years, from subject pools at 2 public colleges in New York City. In small groups, subjects wrote stories to TAT pictures 1, 5, 6GF, 7BM, 8, and 18GF, under one of 3 conditions, and then filled out a questionnaire regarding their affect at the beginning and end of the experiment.;Control subjects wrote stories with no interventions. Subjects in the anger condition were subjected to criticism of their stories, intended to induce anger. The control and anger conditions were comparable to Cramer's. In a third condition, simulated-anger, subjects were asked to imagine that their stories had been subjected to the same criticisms given in the anger condition. All stories were scored blind for defensive projection using the DMM, and for aggression using categories from the Hall and Van de Castle (1966) and the Whitman, Pierce, Maas, and Baldridge (1961) systems.;Data were analyzed by 2 (gender) by 3 (condition) MANOVAS. Subjects in the anger and simulated-anger conditions reported slightly more anger on the questionnaire than those in the control condition (multivariate p =.09; univariate p =.004). For TAT aggression and projection scores, there were no significant differences among conditions. The failure to replicate Cramer's findings of increased aggression and projection in her anger condition precluded the demonstration of predicted differences between the anger and simulated-anger conditions. Some support for gender differences in use of projection was shown (men {dollar}>{dollar} women, multivariate {dollar}p < .02{dollar}, univariate p =.056).;Results were inconclusive regarding the validation of P. Cramer's scoring system. Possible reasons include differences in subject characteristics, and group versus individual data collection.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
