Introduction
The concept of projection goes back to Sigmund Freud
, who introduced this term to describe certain psychopathological processes. It was described as a defense mechanism
that permits one to be “unaware of undesirable aspects of one’s personality by attributing aggressive and/or sexual feelings to others or to the outside world.” In that way, one can avoid being aware of those feelings in oneself. Projection is usually described as a defense mechanism whose purpose is to avoid feeling guilty or neurotically anxious. Freud’s theory suggested that it was easier to tolerate punishment from the outside than to accept impulses inconsistent with one’s self-concept and moral principles. Thus, it is simpler to accuse someone else of hating oneself than it is to admit hating the other person. Defense mechanisms are unconscious processes; one is not likely to admit consciously that one hates someone if one is neurotically anxious. In its extreme forms, Freud noted, distortion of reality can be of such major proportions that perception of the judgment of others takes the form of paranoia.
Freud later extended the use of the term “projection” to include times when there is no conflict. He believed that as one goes through life, memories of past events influence the way one sees the present. Early life experiences shape the future so that, for example, the kind of experiences one had with a brother when growing up influences how one sees “brothers” relate to their families. This leads to the basic assumption that all present responses to one’s environment are based, as Albert Rabin put it, on personal needs, motivations, and unique tendencies. All of these are actually based on past experiences. Sheldon Korchin suggested that the weakening of the boundaries between self and others also occurs in empathy, which has been viewed as the opposite of projection. In empathy, one figuratively puts oneself in another person’s shoes by accepting and experiencing the feelings of another person. Empathy, therefore, is an important part of establishing close and meaningful relationships with others and is an important aspect of personality.
Leopold Bellak saw projection as the term one uses to describe a greater degree of overall distortion. This is consistent with Freud’s original use of the term. He differentiated this pathological and unconscious type of projection, which he called inverted projection, from simple projection. Simple projection occurs all the time and is not of great clinical significance.
For example, a woman wants to borrow her friend’s hedge trimmer. As she walks down the block to her friend’s house, she thinks about how she is going to ask for the hedge trimmer, since she knows that her friend is not overly enthusiastic about lending his garden tools. She begins to think that her friend might say that it took her a long time to return the trimmer the last time she borrowed it and perhaps that it needed maintenance after she used it. She answers this imagined comment by saying that it rained soon after she started and that she could not finish the job for three days.
She then imagines that her friend will say that she should have returned the trimmer and asked for it again later. She imagines answering that criticism by stating that she knew her friend had gone out of town and would not be back until later in the week. This imaginary conversation might continue until she arrives at her neighbor’s house. Her neighbor is on the porch, and he greets her in a friendly manner. Nevertheless, she responds angrily by telling him that she would never want to borrow his old hedge trimmer anyway. Bellak would explain this incident by noting that the woman wants something from her neighbor but can recall his hesitancy to lend tools. He may turn her request down, which makes her angry. She then assumes that her friend is angry with her. Her response is to be angry with him because he is (theoretically) angry with her.
Projective Hypothesis and Techniques
The projective hypothesis on which projective tests are based states that when one is confronted by an ambiguous stimulus, responses will reflect personal needs, wishes, and overall attitudes toward the outside world. This assumes that all of one’s behavior, even the least significant aspects, is an expression of personality. As Anneliese Korner asserted, individuals who are presented with ambiguous material give responses that they cannot or will not give otherwise. The person who responds to projective techniques does not know what the presenter expects. The resistance to disclosing personal material (including wishes, fears, and aspirations) is diminished. In addition, Korner suggested that what is disclosed in response to projective techniques is not a chance event but is determined by previous life experiences.
Among the most widely known tests that use projective techniques are the Rorschach inkblot test
and Henry A. Murray’s Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). The Rorschach technique consists of ten standard inkblots to which a participant is asked to respond by telling the examiner what the blots look like. The TAT consists of twenty pictures designed to elicit stories that can give important clues to a person’s life and personality. The set is sufficiently clear to permit one to tell stories without great difficulty, yet the pictures are ambiguous (unstructured) enough so that individuals will differ in the kinds of stories they will tell.
Projection Tests and Interpretations
John Exner raised the issue as to whether all responses to a projective technique such as the Rorschach test are necessarily aspects of projection. Is it true, he asked, that more ambiguous stimulus material produces more projection than does less ambiguous material? A simple example may be helpful. An individual might be shown a glass container with sand flowing from one portion of the glass to the other and asked to give this object a name. Most people will call it an egg timer. If, however, a thirty-five-year-old individual embellishes the description of the egg timer by stating that it represents the sands of time and is an indication that life is drawing to a close, that kind of response, in an individual of good health at that age, would seem to be an example of projection. Clearly, however, based on one response, it would be premature to build firm conclusions about this individual’s attitudes toward life and death. Similarly, on the Rorschach test, one response descriptive of aggression may not be particularly diagnostic, but there is evidence that those who give higher frequencies of aggression responses show more aggressive verbal and nonverbal behaviors than those who do not.
Exner, in reporting on other studies, points out that Rorschach interpretations can also be useful with children. He noted that children change over time in their responses to the inkblots and that younger children change more than older children. Further, as children move into mid- and late adolescence, more overall stability is noted in the responses. Finally, he pointed out that perceptual accuracy stabilizes early.
A third study asked whether patients in a hospital setting who have experienced a major loss differ from patients who have not suffered such a loss. Mary Cerney defined three categories of major loss: death or serious injury to individuals close to the patient (including parents, close relatives, or friends); loss as a function of physical or sexual abuse such as incest, torture, or rape; and the observation of violence to other individuals. Cerney found differences in the responses between individual patients who had experienced such loss and patients who had not. She concluded that in this study, patients who had experienced early trauma had distinguishing Rorschach profiles. She further noted, however, that one needed further investigations to determine whether factors other than traumatic loss could contribute to this profile difference.
In a study designed to measure change in defense mechanisms following intensive psychotherapy, researchers compared two groups of individuals who were being treated in a small, long-term treatment facility with a psychoanalytic orientation. One group of patients was judged in advance to be composed of prime users of such defense mechanisms as repression and denial, while the other group was judged to comprise people who make much more use of projection. This categorization was based on a thorough evaluation six weeks after admission to the treatment center. After about fifteen months of intensive treatment, patients were evaluated again in a comprehensive manner. The use of defense mechanisms was established on the basis of responses to the TAT. Results indicated that all patients showed a reduction in the total use of defense mechanisms; this was associated with a reduction in psychiatric symptoms. Interestingly, the patients who made use of projection as a defense showed a greater decline in the use of that defense mechanism after treatment. Along with the decrease in psychiatric symptoms, both groups also showed, as one might expect, improved relationships with others from both a qualitative and a quantitative perspective.
Application to Personality Traits
Freud also applied the concept of projection to everyday personality traits such as jealousy. He differentiated between normal jealousy, projected jealousy, and delusional jealousy. From a psychoanalytic view, he had little to say about normal jealousy; however, projected jealousy, he stated, came from two sources, either from actual unfaithfulness or from impulses toward unfaithfulness that have been pushed into one’s unconscious. He speculated that married individuals are frequently tempted to be unfaithful. In view of that temptation, it is likely that one’s conscience can be soothed by attributing unfaithfulness to one’s partner. Jealousy arising from such a projection can be so strong as to take on the quality of a delusion. Many people are aware of individuals who incorrectly suspect their committed partner to be unfaithful. Freud would argue that these inaccurate expectations are unconscious fantasies of one’s own infidelities and can be so analyzed in psychoanalytic therapy.
Evolution of Research
The term “projection” was introduced by Freud in 1894. Initially Freud viewed it as a defensive process, but by 1913 the concept was broadened to refer to a process that may occur even if there is no conflict. Exner believed that Freud’s description of projection is most applicable in the context of projective tests. Exner also suggested that Freud’s concept of projection fits in well with Murray’s discussion of the TAT. Murray’s broadened explanation of projection included the idea that the ambiguity of responding to a social situation (the test materials) provides clues to that individual’s personality makeup and its expression through responses to projective methods. Projective method refers to any task that provides an open-ended response that may reveal aspects of one’s personality; tasks or tests commonly include standard stimuli that are ambiguous in nature. Lawrence Frank further emphasized the connection between projective tests and the unique expression of an individual’s personality by stating the projective hypothesis.
Applied psychology has been heavily involved with the study of intelligence and the development of tests to evaluate achievement, memory, motor skills, and other cognitive aspects of human functioning. The study of personality was more heavily focused on individual traits, such as extroversion versus introversion. Emphasis on test construction focused on group norms, and comparisons of individual scores on tests were based on their relationships to group data. According to Exner, early Rorschach research also attempted to focus on group norms. To some extent, the focus on determining the meaning of individual responses was probably a reaction to the more “scientific” behavioral and statistically based methods commonly used.
As Exner noted, initial work with the Rorschach inkblots emphasized attempts to quantify personality characteristics; there was relatively little interest in the actual content of the responses. As interest in psychoanalysis swept the country, clinical psychologists began to focus on individual responses to tests, in contrast to their prior emphasis on group comparisons. Projective tests were very controversial, however, and a dichotomy developed between projective tests and the so-called objective tests. The latter tests were ones that could be scored reliably and for which group norms existed. Concurrently, numerous scoring systems were developed for the Rorschach test as well as for other projective measures.
In the late 1970s, Exner developed a comprehensive scoring system for the Rorschach that incorporated many of the features of the existing systems and integrated them into one overall method. In addition, he collected normative data on children, adolescents, and adults that provide opportunities for group comparisons. His comprehensive system is now widely taught in colleges and universities and has provided a measure of unity to the Rorschach test, which is still the personality instrument most widely used by clinicians. The assessment of personality traits will probably continue to flourish, and there will probably be an increasing emphasis on both subjective and objective responses to assess personality. Furthermore, computerized scoring of responses is common for objective personality tests and is beginning to be used with projective personality measures; this is likely to influence the future of personality tests.
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