Journal of Personality Assessment
ISSN: 0022-3891 (Print) 1532-7752 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hjpa20
Are Rorschach Responses Influenced by Society's Change? Louis Bates Ames To cite this article: Louis Bates Ames (1975) Are Rorschach Responses Influenced by Society's Change?, Journal of Personality Assessment, 39:5, 439-452, DOI: 10.1207/s15327752jpa3905_1 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa3905_1
Published online: 10 Jun 2010.
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Journal of Personality Assessment, 1975,39, 5
Are Rorschach Responses Influenced by Society's Change? LOUISE BATES AMES Gesell Institute, New Haven, Connecticut
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Summary: It is generally believed that people "normally" see male figures on Card 111 and females on Card VII, and that seeing females on I11 by males may be an indication of confused sexuality. Brown (1971) suggests that recently there has been a marked increase in the number of males who see females on 111 and that this indicates a cultural change toward a blurring of sex roles. Present findings are that male subjects through 60 years of age see substantial numbers of females o n Card 111. More males d o see females o n I11 in 1970 than earlier, but it seems to be the age of the subject more than the decade in which he lives that primarily determines response.
Rorschach workers tend to have rather firmly held expectations as to what kind of responses will be given to the various blots. One of the more customary expectations is that subjects of both sexes will see male figures on Card 111 and females on Card VII. It is also customarily held that responses to these two cards may reflect the subject's attitude toward his own sexuality. Schafer (1948) holds that when the popular figures on Card 111 are seen as a woman or bisexual or when the syrnrnetrical figures are seen as one man and one woman, this indicates "fear of and a rejecting attitude toward masculine identification, and thus feminine identification in rnen" (p. 135), and when reversal, combining, blurring, or arbitrary assignment of sex characteristics occur in the case of women the same conclusions can be drawn with regard to fear and rejection of a feminine identification, and concomitant masculine identification. Brown (1971) in his extremely suggestive and comprehensive study, "Changes in Sexual Identification and Role over a Decade and their Implications," comments on the fact that Card 111 traditionally facilitates a masculine response and Card VII a feminine one. He gives an excellent review of the literature, pointing out that except for Hammer, most writers have found this traditional expectation to be carried out. In Rorschach's own cases, 44% (both sexes combined) saw males on 111 (none saw females) and 67% saw no humans on Card VII. Hammer (19661, unlike other investigators, felt that "when a female reports
seeing males, or no humans at all on Rorschach Card 111, the likelihood is great that she is suffering from some form of emotional disturbance . . . It appears to be the norm for non-clinic males to see females on this card. This would make suspect the assumption that Card I11 is an index of sexual identification for males unless the reader is prepared to say that most males, especially college students, tend to be femininely identified" (p. 162). Thirty % of Hammer's male patienrs saw females on Card I11 in contrast to 52% of male normals who did SO;while only 7% of his female patients compared with 47% of female normals saw j%males on the same card. Brown (1971) notes that "this unanticipated finding runs diametrically counter to implicit base rates postulate J by earlier psychodiagnosticians" (p. 233). Brown, however, appears to share the common belief that responses to Cards 111 and VII do reflect the individual's attitude toward his own sexuality or his sexual identification. He also feels that such responses "serve as a unique mirror of the culture and therefore lend themselves to a study of change occurring within the culture" (1971, p. 231). Brown's findings, which have been given wide coverage in the popular press, are that there has in recent years been a marked increase in the number of male patients who see female figures on Card 111. Males tested in the years 1960 to 1967 saw many more females than did males tested between 1956 and 1959. He also found that younger private palients
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Are Rorschach Responses Influenced by Society's Change?
between the ages of 16 and 25 saw more females on Card I11 than did patients over the age of 40 years' and that these differences were pronounced in more recent years. (That is, the tendency is increasing.) He further found that earlier female private and clinic patients saw more males on Card I11 than did females of the later group. (Does he feel that females are getting more feminine?) Thus Brown's conclusion is that "there has been a significant reversal of the sex of figures seen on Card I11 in recent times . . . and that a younger generation of patients would be more sensitively responsive to and involved with socialcultural influences affecting sexual identification and role than an older and presumably more stabilized population7' (1971, p. 234). The present study follows up the suggestions made in Brown's paper. Rorschach responses of supposedly normal subjects aged 5 years through 100 years, indicating sex of humans seen on Cards I11 and VII, are reported. Two kinds of comparisons were made: (a) age changes in responses to Cards I11 and VII; and (b) time changes in response to these cards, comparing responses of individuals of the same age in different decades.
Subjects Subjects available numbered over 1000 males and females ranging in age from five through extreme old age. Table 1 summarizes the number of individuals of both sexes whose records provided data for the present
Results Age Changes in Response Table 2 shows percentages of the different responses given to Cards It1 and VII, for the sexes separately, during the different decades of the human life span for subjects examined in our early groups. Most conspicuous, for Card I11 is the fact that at the beginning and the end of life, i.e., in 5- to 10-year-old subjects and in senile older subjects, the outstanding response to this card is a D or W single response. Neither two men, two women, or even two persons occurs conspicuously. Two men begin to occur strongly by the early teens, over one-fourth of both boys and girls giving this response. The percentage value of t h s response increases with age, reaching its peak in the 3040-60-year-olds (62% for female subjects, 50% for males), and in the normal elderly (52% of women's responses, 59% of men's). It holds up well even in presenility (40% of the women, 31% of Hypotheses were : the men seeing two men). 1. Changes in these responses with age The response two women is never of subject may be equal to or greater than really strong in girls or women. It reaches those seen with time and cultural change. its high point of 8% in teen-age and 2. It is not merely a current (1973) 20-year-old girls. Two women is given phenomenon for presumably normal most by presumably normal males in males to see female figures on Card 111. their twenties (36% of responses), in their 3. That the number of females seen thirties (30% of responses), and in men on Card I11 by males 30 years of age and slightly older (18%). over has increased, but not substantially, Thus for both 20-year-old and for in the last one or two decades. 30-to-40-year-old subjects, more female 4. That the more or less expected subjects see males than females, more responses of seeing males on 111 and male subjects gee females than males. But females on VII are not as customary as for 30-to-60-year-old subjects, both sexes has been assumed. see more males than females. These findings are interesting in view Brown's (1971) finding that "The figures seen on Card 111 on a first exarnina- of the notion held by some that it is tion are stubbornly resistant to change on chiefly the individual disturbed about his subsequent examinations" (p. 247) was or her sexuality who sees individuals of the opposite sex on Card 111. They are also checked.
Table I. - Subject Categories
A. Different Age Groups
Later Subjects 1972-1973
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Early Subjects 1948-1962
Males
Males
Females 5 - 10 years 11 - 16years College ages (median age = 20) Young adult (median age = 35)
Young adult (median age = 26)
Mid-adult (median age = 41)
Mid-adult (median age = 42)
Normal elderly (median age = 77)
Normal elderly (75)
Presenile elderly (median age = 80)
Intact presenile (median age = 88) Medium presenile (median age = 87)
Senile elderly (median age = 83)
Deteriorated elderly (median age = 85:
B. 5 - 10 year olds of different decades, intelligence, and SES levels Test Date
Mean IQ
New Haven
1948-1950
118
Weston
1957-1960
110
North Haven
I
1959.1962
,
_105 __
Girls
Boys
Professional, managerial
175
175
Semi-professional, managerial
194
204
Modal Socio-economic Level
I
Ckrka!, ski!!ed, r e t d husiness
Inner City
Semi-, slightly-skilled
Gesell Clinical
-
I
332
I
119 - & '
Ei2 w
z",
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Are Rorschach Responses Influenced by Society's Change?
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LOUISE BATES AMES especially interesting in view of Hammer's findings that "for a female to see a male or no human at all is almost pathognomonic of emotional disturbance" (1966, p. 161). If this were true, then perhaps a majority of the females examined by us would have to be considered to be emotionally disturbed. We question that this is so. So far as our subjects are concerned, then, it was not unusual for presumably normal males of all adult ages up to 60 years to see female figures on Card 111, at least in the 1940's and 1950's. For Card VII, as Table 2 shows, more or less the same age trends occur. At the earliest and the latest ages in the life span the subject sees primarily a D or W single object. The only two of anythng which occur conspicuously are two animals. Two animals are the outstanding response also in 10-to-16-year-olds. At other ages, except for normal elderly males who see two people, two females is the outstanding response t o Card VII until presenility, reaching its peak in the 30-to-60-year-old subjects of both sexes. Presenile women give mostly a D or W single response t o Card VII. Men give, either two women or a D or W single responses. Deteriorated subjects either refuse Card VII or give a D or W single response. Two men almost never occurs as a response to Card VII, at any age.
Time Changes in Response at 10 and 20- Year Intervals Table 3 presents the check on the accuracy of Brown's observation that men are changing in their sexual responses or identifications, as evidenced by an increase of female responses to Card 111. This table compares groups of men in their twenties, thirties to sixties, and in old age, at 10 and 20-year time intervals. Earlier and later subjects were matched roughly for age and socioeconomic status. Men in their twenties were all college boys, graduate students, or young professional men. Men between 30 and 6 0 were nearly all professional men, for the most part university faculty. The elderly men were nearly all guests at the Masonic Home and Hospital in Walling-
443 ford, Connecticut and the majority had little more than a grammar schocll education and occupational levels were mostly below the semi-professional or managerial level. Findings, as presented in Table 3, show some differences in responses given 10 or 20 years ago and those given in 1972-73, but also many similarities. Young men, 10 years ago and currently, saw many more women than men on Card 111. The most conspicuous difference was that 10 years ago 36% saw two women and 4 1% saw two peopb. Today 76% see two women and only 4% see two people. The 30-to.60-year-old males, in both groups, saw predominantly men on Card 111, just over or just 50% for the two groups. More then twice as mimy saw men as saw women. In the earlier group, 18%saw women, 14% saw male orfemale. In the later group there are no ambiguous male or female responses, and 25% saw women. Normal elderly (men over 70 whose Rorschach responses were classed as normal adult) in the earlier group ;saw predominantly (59%) men on Card HI, with two peopb next at 33%. In the later group 50% ea~chsaw men and people. As integrity of function diminishes, that is in the presenile groups, though men saw chiefly men on Card I11 (3 1% in the early group, 30% in the later group), this figure is now the lowest of any time since 30 years of age. Men in the 1960 group saw 5% women, 27% people, and 21% animals. Men in the 1970 group saw 14% women, 22% people, and 14% animals. In the 1960 deteriorated group, 11% of subjects saw men, 11% saw people, and the majority (56%) gave a D or W single response. There were onl:y two deteriorated men see in 1972-73, ar~d both refused Card IUI. Thus we fiind only slight substantiation of Brown's finding that men nowadays (the 1970's) see substantially more women on Card 111 than they did in years past. More women than men were seen, in 1950, 1960, and also today by men under 30 years of age. But in all age groups over
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Are Rorschach Responses Influenced by Society 's Change?
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LOUISE BATES AMES 30, men predominate over women as a response to Card 111. A trend in the direction whch Brown proposes does occur in the present study, i.e., a higher percentage of women responses is seen in 1970 than 10 or 20 years earlier in men under 30, in the 30-to-60-year-old age group and in presenile men. In the men under 30, this increase of women responses is substantial but seems due chiefly to a combining of the responses two women and two people. In the 30-to-60-year-old men, the increase is slighter and seems to result from a combining of the two women and the male and female categories. In presenile men, again, the larger 1970 figure results from there being fewer two people responses than earlier. These changes may indeed imply a greater readiness on the part of men today to name women when they see them on Card 111, rather than to say two people or male and female. But this is only a conjecture. At any rate, except for the young males under 30, other groups, whatever the decade, saw many more men than women on Card 111. Statistical analysis of responses to Card III is presented in Table 4. This analysis reveals that both differences between age groups (that is between subjects in their twenties, those in their thirties to sixties, and those over seventy) with decades of testing combined, and differences between decades with ages combined, were statistically significant. This supports our contention that in general one may expect a different response to Card I11 in men under 30 than in those over 30. Young men see more women; older men see mostly men. However, in agreement with Brown's hypothesis, there is a significant change in distribution of responses by men on Card I11 when all responses given in 1948-61 are compared -with those given in 1972-73. Responses of men to Card VII (see Table 3) are somewhat variable from age to age and from decade to decade, though all groups at all ages saw more women
than men. Thus though there does exist some tendency for more men in the 1970's to name women outright on Card I11 rather than to use the more ambiguous or neutral terms two people or male and female, assuming that our groups of subjects can be considered fairly comparable and typical, there is considerable similarity be tween responses of men tested in 1972-73 and those tested a decade or two earlier, to Cards I11 and VII. However, it is clear that there is substantial difference between responses of younger and older men. Men in their twenties in both our 1960 and 1970 samples saw many more women than men on Card 111. But men between 30 and 60 saw many more men than Iwomen, as do men over seventy, at least in that group who on the basis of the Rorschach can be classed as "normal elderly." As individuals deteriorate in old age, the two men response to Card I11 diminishes. In two groups d presenile subjects, seen respectively in 1960 and 1970, only about one-third of subjects saw men on 111. The less siexually defined people and animals responses predominated. Of deteriorated male subjects, very few saw men and none saw women. They either refused the blot or gave a miscel~aneous variety of non-human responses.
Comparison of Responses of Five Groups of 5 to 17 0-Year-Olds of Different Socio-Economic Status to Card 111 Table 5 gives comparative data for five different groups of Connecticut giirls and boys between the ages of 5 and 10, seen in 1948-50, 14157-60, 1959-62, 1964, and 1969-71. Subjects were of different socioeconomic status and varying intellectual levels. No co~~spicuous differences were evident, and no increase in the nurnber of females seen on Card I11 occurred in 1969-71 as compared to 1948-50. For girls, .D or W single responses predominated for every group from 1948 to 1970. Secondly, either two men or two animals occurred, except for late Gesell clinical girls for whom two people was the second most frequent response.
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Table 4 Percentage Distribution of Responses to Card I11 Popular Figures in Three Age Groups of Men Tested in Present and Earlier Decades
20-29 Years
Two men Two women Man and woman Two people Total
5%
9%
70-100 Years
30-60 Years
7%
55%
65%
60%
55%
All Ages Combined
41%
49%
43%
42
81
63
20
29
24
6
17
11
19
5
5
5
15
0
8
0
10
5
5
47
5
24
10
6
8
39
31
35
33
99
100
99
100
100
100
100
99
100
100 b
a
NT = total subjects tested; Np = number of subjects who respond with the P figures on 111. The percentages reported and the raw frequencies used in the singificance tests are based on the reduced (Np) totals. Note. Comparison of age groups with decades of testing combined (a vs b vs c): decades, with age groups combined (d vs e): X32 = 1 0 . 6 6 ; ~ < .02.
xs2 = 47.20; p < .001. Comparison of
r: ,$
U-
n
s
3
0s
2,
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Table 5 Comparison of Five Groups of 5- to 10-Year-01ds: Percentage of Responses to Card I11
Response
Two men Male & female Two women Two people Two animals Two other D or W single
Refusal a G = girl; B = boy
Gesell 1948-50 Mean I.Q. 118
Weston 1957-60 Mean I.Q. 110
North Haven 1959-62 Mean I.Q. 105
Abraham Lincoln 1964 Mean I.Q. 93
Late Gesell 1969-71
k
%
448
Are Rorschach Responses Influenced by Society's Change?
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Again for boys, at every age, a D or W single response was definitely the most frequent except for Weston subjects who gave as many animals as D or W single responses. In other groups, two animals or two men was the second leading response. Two women as a response did not exceed 3% except in late Gesell clinical girls where it reached a high point of 7%. Thus in the age range 5 to 10 years, in children of all socioeconomic levels at no time in the last 20 years were any significant number of females seen by either girls or boys examined by us.
Responses to Cards 111and VII Compared Brown's original hypothesis was that there might be a significant relationship between the response to Card 111 and to Card VII, and that from 40 to 50% of patients would offer a combination of men on I11 and women on VII. As it turned out, only 9.4% of his men subjects and 14.3% of h s women (mean 11.8%) gave such a combination. Consequently the conventionality of this pattern seemed disproven. Brown found, again contrary to his original hypothesis, that both sexes of his later group showed a highly significant preference for the &male-female combination. In his earlier subjects it was more customary for the subjects to see males on 111 and no human figures on VII. Findings of the present study do not bear out Brown's original expectation that it is quite usual for people to see men on 111 and women on VII. As Table 6 shows clearly, men on I11 and women on VII occur conspicuously in our earlier subjects, only in women between 30 and 40 (29%) and in both women and men between 40 and 50 (4276, 23%). In later subjects the combination is seen conspicuously only in men from 40 t o 50 (25%). Women on both cards are seen only in our early 30-to-40-year-old males (38%) and in our later 20-year-old males (25%). Most subjects of both sexes and at all ages give some combination of responses other than ma1eJfemale or femaleJmale, or both males or both females. Responses
to Card VII are very often either people or animals or a D or W single response. Constancy of Content Brown (1971) states, "The figures seen on Card I11 on a first examination are stubbornly resistant to change on subsequent examinations" (p. 247). Admittedly, as our own investigation has shown (Ames, 1960), there is a great constancy of content in any one subject's responses from one examination to the next: Content of Rorschach responses of 8 girls and 21 boys tested annually from 2 to 10 years, and of 35 girls and 30 boys tested annually from 10 to 16 years (not every subject available at every age) was analyzed t o determine the extent to which individual subjects gave identical responses from age to age. It was found that both girls and boys in the younger group gave consistent responses (same content on any one card on four or more consecutive tests) on a mean of 3.9 cards out of the total ten per subject. At older ages, means for constant responses per subject were 4.8 for girls, 5.0 for boys. The number of cards on which consistent responses are given increases with age. By far the majority of these consistent concepts fall among the so-called popular (or banal) responses: 87 percent of younger girls' responses, 70 percent of younger boys', 65 percent of older girls', 76 percent of older boys' fall into the popular category. Thus consistent responses of girls become less popular as they grow older, those of boys more popular. (p. 163).
In this earlier investigation all cards were considered. The present study considers only constancy of response to Card 111. The extent to which responses to Card 111 were identical in three successive examinations in shown in Table 7. For 5-to-10-year-old subjects, consistency of response was 25% in girls, and 62% in boys. For the 10-to-16-year-oldsubjects, this figure rose to 52% in girls, and remained about the same (61%) in boys. For 18-to-22-year-old subjects, consistency was less. Response remained exactly
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Table 6 Percentage of Individuals Giving Various Combinations of Responses to Cards I11 and VII
I
-
5-10 yrs.
11-16 yrs.
20 years
Response Men on 111, wanen on VII
2
Women on111 Men on VII
Women on both
O
Other Responses
a Groups seen in 1972-73; others are earlier subjects.
30-40 yrs.
40-50 yrs.
Normal Old
Presenile
I
Senile
450
Are Rorschach Responses Influenced by Society's Change? Table 7 Consistency of Response on Retesting with Card I11 5-10 yrs.
10-16 yrs. 18-22 yrs. 30-40 yrs.
Over 7oa
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8G 21B 35G 30B 25G 18B 7F 13M 15F 10M All 3 tests the same
25% 62% 52% 61% 20% 22%
Only 2 tests the same
b
b
b
b
40
61
69
57
40%20%
All or both different
b
b
b
b
40
17
31
14
60
80
All the same even though with varied wording
25
62
52
61
24
44
38
78
40
20
0% 29% b
b
a Only two sequential tests given. Figures not available. the same for three years in succession in 20% of the girls, 22% of the boys. This figure remained about the same in girls but in boys increased to 44% when a response was counted as consistent if it remained approximately the same even though the exact wording was not identical. When three successive annual responses to Card 111 of 30-to-40-year-olds were considered, the three responses were identical in no women but in 29% of the men. If we include responses which were approximately the same even though the wording was not identical, this figure rose substantially - to 38% in women, 78%in men. For very old people only two successive tests were available. Of these subjects, 40% of the women, and 20% of the men gave the same response on subsequent tests. This degree of constancy of response seems noteworthy, but it does not support Brown's description that responses are stubbornly resistant to change. In view of Brown's conclusion that the two sexes in our society, are becoming more alike, the marked sex differences in con-
stancy are noteworthy. For every age group except the very elderly, males are much more consistent than are females.
Discussion and Conclusions Present findings call into question or contradict several widely held beliefs as to the meaning of responses to Rorschach Card 111. First, it is rather generally assumed that the sex of a subject's responses to Card I11 gives evidence as to his sexual identification. Most examiners appear to expect that both males and females will give more male than female responses to this card; and for males to give a female response is sometimes suspect. (However, some have maintained that seeing figures of the opposite sex to one's own is indicative of a confusion of sex role, and Hammer goes so far as to state that for a female to see a male or no human at all is almost pathognomonic of emotional disturbance.) Present findings question these assumptions. They do not indicate that the response to Card I11 gives special evidence as to sexual identification.
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LOUISE BATES AMES Female subjects in the present study see many more men than women at seven of the age levels reviewed and at the eighth, see neither men nor women. Of males studied, 20-year-old males see definitely more women than men - 5% men, 36% women in early subjects; 8% men, 76% women in later subjects. In 304040-year-old males, 30% see women on Card 111; in 30-to-60-year-old males, 18% to 35% see women. A second notion, recently proposed, is Brown's reporting that the number of males seeing female figures on Card I11 has increased substantially within the last decade. He attributes this change to a blurring or blending of sex roles and a change in popular attitudes toward sex role. Our findings are that as early as the 1940's and 1950's a very substantial number of presumably normal males do see females on Card 111. The youngest males, men in their twenties, in 1960 as well as in 1972 saw more females than males on Card 111. Admittedly this number was larger in 1972, apparently due to the fact that young men in 1972 seemed to combine their two women and two people responses into the one response two women. Adult males between the ages of 30 and 60, both in 1950 and 1972, gave more male than female responses to Card 111. Again, the number of women seen in 1972 was slightly larger than in 1950, perhaps due to the fact that the earlier ambiguous male or female responses were now, apparently, given as women. Normal elderly males, and intact and medium presenile males, also, saw more men than women on 111. Again the number of women seen in 1972 was slightly larger than in the I 950's. Thus there are admittedly somewhat more f e d e responses to Card 111 given by males tested in 1972 than by males tested in the two decades just earlier, but the predominance of females over males in the 20-year-old group was already clearly evident in 1958-61. Though our findings do agree with Brown that there is some increase in the number of femles given by males on
Card 111 today as compared to years past, the increase seen by us does not seem large enough to warrant his cor~clusion that om society has changed to the extent that sex roles have become blurred or blended. The finding that increase in female figures seen by males among our subjects appears to Tes?Jlt from a decrease of such responses as two people or male and female and an increase in the more forthright two women, does give support to Brown's suggestion that males in the 1970's may b~emore free to express the sex of the image as it appears to them and may feel less constrained to give a totally conventional response. However, present findings indicate that it is by no means new or unusual for male subjects to see females on Card 111. In another area our findings do not agree with Brown's 1971 statement that figures seen on Card I11 on a first examination are stubbornly resistant to change in subsequent examinations Perhaps the main significance of present findings is that they constitute a very strong warning as to the danger of a "sign" approach to Rorschach interpretation. Hammer's (1966) statement that "for a female to see a male or no human at all on II1[ is almost pathognomlonic of emotional disturbance" (p. 161) is clearly contradicted. It seems fair to agree that the naming of a figure of the opposite sex to the subject, in a secord which shows other signs of disturbed or confused sexuality, may be considered as a possible Further confirmation of supposed confused sexuality. But since naming of a figure of the opposite sex is at many ages more common than naming a figure of one's same sex, present findings contradict the notion that it is automatically a sign of pathology. Interpretation of any Rorschach response should, perhaps, always be taken more as a hypothesis, to be considered in the light of all other evidence, than as a "sign" of some special attribute or abnormality. The present study, carried out in response to Brown's proposals, bears
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Are Rorschach Responses Influenced by Society's Change?
several warnings. The first is that common assumptions such as that people "normally" see on Card I11 figures of their own sex and that the response to Card I11 is a good clue to any subject's feelings about his or her own sexuality, should be taken with strong reservations. Second, there is a danger in regarding any Rorschach "sign" as a certainty. Third, one should be extremely cautious in making a hypothetical assumption about the meaning of some particular Rorschach response and then generalizing from the responses of a single group of subjects to things that are going on in society. Our basic findings were that it is not unusual for any individual to see figures of the opposite sex to his own on Rorschach Card 111, and that it seems to be the age of the subject more than the decade in which he lives that primarily determines response. Younger males, more than older, tend to see female figures on Card 111.
References Ames, L. B. Constancy of content in Rorschach response. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 1960,96, 145-164. Brown, F. Changes in sexual identification and role over a decade and their implications. Journal of Psychology, 1971, 77, 229-251. Hammer, M. A. A comparison of responses by clinic and normal adults to Rorschach Card 111 human figure area. Journal of Projective Techniques & Personality Assessment, 1966, 30, 161-162. Nelson, M., Wolfson, W., & LaCascio, R. Sexual identification in response t o Rorschach Card 111. Journal of Projective Techniques, 1959, 23, 354-356. Schafer, R. The clinical application of psychological tests. New York: International University Press, 1948. Louise B. Ames, PhD Gesell Institute of Child Development 310 Prospect St. New Haven, Connecticut 065 11 Received: November 27,1973 Revised: July 19, 1974
ISSN: 0022-3891 (Print) 1532-7752 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hjpa20
Are Rorschach Responses Influenced by Society's Change? Louis Bates Ames To cite this article: Louis Bates Ames (1975) Are Rorschach Responses Influenced by Society's Change?, Journal of Personality Assessment, 39:5, 439-452, DOI: 10.1207/s15327752jpa3905_1 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa3905_1
Published online: 10 Jun 2010.
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Are Rorschach Responses Influenced by Society's Change? LOUISE BATES AMES Gesell Institute, New Haven, Connecticut
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Summary: It is generally believed that people "normally" see male figures on Card 111 and females on Card VII, and that seeing females on I11 by males may be an indication of confused sexuality. Brown (1971) suggests that recently there has been a marked increase in the number of males who see females on 111 and that this indicates a cultural change toward a blurring of sex roles. Present findings are that male subjects through 60 years of age see substantial numbers of females o n Card 111. More males d o see females o n I11 in 1970 than earlier, but it seems to be the age of the subject more than the decade in which he lives that primarily determines response.
Rorschach workers tend to have rather firmly held expectations as to what kind of responses will be given to the various blots. One of the more customary expectations is that subjects of both sexes will see male figures on Card 111 and females on Card VII. It is also customarily held that responses to these two cards may reflect the subject's attitude toward his own sexuality. Schafer (1948) holds that when the popular figures on Card 111 are seen as a woman or bisexual or when the syrnrnetrical figures are seen as one man and one woman, this indicates "fear of and a rejecting attitude toward masculine identification, and thus feminine identification in rnen" (p. 135), and when reversal, combining, blurring, or arbitrary assignment of sex characteristics occur in the case of women the same conclusions can be drawn with regard to fear and rejection of a feminine identification, and concomitant masculine identification. Brown (1971) in his extremely suggestive and comprehensive study, "Changes in Sexual Identification and Role over a Decade and their Implications," comments on the fact that Card 111 traditionally facilitates a masculine response and Card VII a feminine one. He gives an excellent review of the literature, pointing out that except for Hammer, most writers have found this traditional expectation to be carried out. In Rorschach's own cases, 44% (both sexes combined) saw males on 111 (none saw females) and 67% saw no humans on Card VII. Hammer (19661, unlike other investigators, felt that "when a female reports
seeing males, or no humans at all on Rorschach Card 111, the likelihood is great that she is suffering from some form of emotional disturbance . . . It appears to be the norm for non-clinic males to see females on this card. This would make suspect the assumption that Card I11 is an index of sexual identification for males unless the reader is prepared to say that most males, especially college students, tend to be femininely identified" (p. 162). Thirty % of Hammer's male patienrs saw females on Card I11 in contrast to 52% of male normals who did SO;while only 7% of his female patients compared with 47% of female normals saw j%males on the same card. Brown (1971) notes that "this unanticipated finding runs diametrically counter to implicit base rates postulate J by earlier psychodiagnosticians" (p. 233). Brown, however, appears to share the common belief that responses to Cards 111 and VII do reflect the individual's attitude toward his own sexuality or his sexual identification. He also feels that such responses "serve as a unique mirror of the culture and therefore lend themselves to a study of change occurring within the culture" (1971, p. 231). Brown's findings, which have been given wide coverage in the popular press, are that there has in recent years been a marked increase in the number of male patients who see female figures on Card 111. Males tested in the years 1960 to 1967 saw many more females than did males tested between 1956 and 1959. He also found that younger private palients
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Are Rorschach Responses Influenced by Society's Change?
between the ages of 16 and 25 saw more females on Card I11 than did patients over the age of 40 years' and that these differences were pronounced in more recent years. (That is, the tendency is increasing.) He further found that earlier female private and clinic patients saw more males on Card I11 than did females of the later group. (Does he feel that females are getting more feminine?) Thus Brown's conclusion is that "there has been a significant reversal of the sex of figures seen on Card I11 in recent times . . . and that a younger generation of patients would be more sensitively responsive to and involved with socialcultural influences affecting sexual identification and role than an older and presumably more stabilized population7' (1971, p. 234). The present study follows up the suggestions made in Brown's paper. Rorschach responses of supposedly normal subjects aged 5 years through 100 years, indicating sex of humans seen on Cards I11 and VII, are reported. Two kinds of comparisons were made: (a) age changes in responses to Cards I11 and VII; and (b) time changes in response to these cards, comparing responses of individuals of the same age in different decades.
Subjects Subjects available numbered over 1000 males and females ranging in age from five through extreme old age. Table 1 summarizes the number of individuals of both sexes whose records provided data for the present
Results Age Changes in Response Table 2 shows percentages of the different responses given to Cards It1 and VII, for the sexes separately, during the different decades of the human life span for subjects examined in our early groups. Most conspicuous, for Card I11 is the fact that at the beginning and the end of life, i.e., in 5- to 10-year-old subjects and in senile older subjects, the outstanding response to this card is a D or W single response. Neither two men, two women, or even two persons occurs conspicuously. Two men begin to occur strongly by the early teens, over one-fourth of both boys and girls giving this response. The percentage value of t h s response increases with age, reaching its peak in the 3040-60-year-olds (62% for female subjects, 50% for males), and in the normal elderly (52% of women's responses, 59% of men's). It holds up well even in presenility (40% of the women, 31% of Hypotheses were : the men seeing two men). 1. Changes in these responses with age The response two women is never of subject may be equal to or greater than really strong in girls or women. It reaches those seen with time and cultural change. its high point of 8% in teen-age and 2. It is not merely a current (1973) 20-year-old girls. Two women is given phenomenon for presumably normal most by presumably normal males in males to see female figures on Card 111. their twenties (36% of responses), in their 3. That the number of females seen thirties (30% of responses), and in men on Card I11 by males 30 years of age and slightly older (18%). over has increased, but not substantially, Thus for both 20-year-old and for in the last one or two decades. 30-to-40-year-old subjects, more female 4. That the more or less expected subjects see males than females, more responses of seeing males on 111 and male subjects gee females than males. But females on VII are not as customary as for 30-to-60-year-old subjects, both sexes has been assumed. see more males than females. These findings are interesting in view Brown's (1971) finding that "The figures seen on Card 111 on a first exarnina- of the notion held by some that it is tion are stubbornly resistant to change on chiefly the individual disturbed about his subsequent examinations" (p. 247) was or her sexuality who sees individuals of the opposite sex on Card 111. They are also checked.
Table I. - Subject Categories
A. Different Age Groups
Later Subjects 1972-1973
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Early Subjects 1948-1962
Males
Males
Females 5 - 10 years 11 - 16years College ages (median age = 20) Young adult (median age = 35)
Young adult (median age = 26)
Mid-adult (median age = 41)
Mid-adult (median age = 42)
Normal elderly (median age = 77)
Normal elderly (75)
Presenile elderly (median age = 80)
Intact presenile (median age = 88) Medium presenile (median age = 87)
Senile elderly (median age = 83)
Deteriorated elderly (median age = 85:
B. 5 - 10 year olds of different decades, intelligence, and SES levels Test Date
Mean IQ
New Haven
1948-1950
118
Weston
1957-1960
110
North Haven
I
1959.1962
,
_105 __
Girls
Boys
Professional, managerial
175
175
Semi-professional, managerial
194
204
Modal Socio-economic Level
I
Ckrka!, ski!!ed, r e t d husiness
Inner City
Semi-, slightly-skilled
Gesell Clinical
-
I
332
I
119 - & '
Ei2 w
z",
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Are Rorschach Responses Influenced by Society's Change?
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LOUISE BATES AMES especially interesting in view of Hammer's findings that "for a female to see a male or no human at all is almost pathognomonic of emotional disturbance" (1966, p. 161). If this were true, then perhaps a majority of the females examined by us would have to be considered to be emotionally disturbed. We question that this is so. So far as our subjects are concerned, then, it was not unusual for presumably normal males of all adult ages up to 60 years to see female figures on Card 111, at least in the 1940's and 1950's. For Card VII, as Table 2 shows, more or less the same age trends occur. At the earliest and the latest ages in the life span the subject sees primarily a D or W single object. The only two of anythng which occur conspicuously are two animals. Two animals are the outstanding response also in 10-to-16-year-olds. At other ages, except for normal elderly males who see two people, two females is the outstanding response t o Card VII until presenility, reaching its peak in the 30-to-60-year-old subjects of both sexes. Presenile women give mostly a D or W single response t o Card VII. Men give, either two women or a D or W single responses. Deteriorated subjects either refuse Card VII or give a D or W single response. Two men almost never occurs as a response to Card VII, at any age.
Time Changes in Response at 10 and 20- Year Intervals Table 3 presents the check on the accuracy of Brown's observation that men are changing in their sexual responses or identifications, as evidenced by an increase of female responses to Card 111. This table compares groups of men in their twenties, thirties to sixties, and in old age, at 10 and 20-year time intervals. Earlier and later subjects were matched roughly for age and socioeconomic status. Men in their twenties were all college boys, graduate students, or young professional men. Men between 30 and 6 0 were nearly all professional men, for the most part university faculty. The elderly men were nearly all guests at the Masonic Home and Hospital in Walling-
443 ford, Connecticut and the majority had little more than a grammar schocll education and occupational levels were mostly below the semi-professional or managerial level. Findings, as presented in Table 3, show some differences in responses given 10 or 20 years ago and those given in 1972-73, but also many similarities. Young men, 10 years ago and currently, saw many more women than men on Card 111. The most conspicuous difference was that 10 years ago 36% saw two women and 4 1% saw two peopb. Today 76% see two women and only 4% see two people. The 30-to.60-year-old males, in both groups, saw predominantly men on Card 111, just over or just 50% for the two groups. More then twice as mimy saw men as saw women. In the earlier group, 18%saw women, 14% saw male orfemale. In the later group there are no ambiguous male or female responses, and 25% saw women. Normal elderly (men over 70 whose Rorschach responses were classed as normal adult) in the earlier group ;saw predominantly (59%) men on Card HI, with two peopb next at 33%. In the later group 50% ea~chsaw men and people. As integrity of function diminishes, that is in the presenile groups, though men saw chiefly men on Card I11 (3 1% in the early group, 30% in the later group), this figure is now the lowest of any time since 30 years of age. Men in the 1960 group saw 5% women, 27% people, and 21% animals. Men in the 1970 group saw 14% women, 22% people, and 14% animals. In the 1960 deteriorated group, 11% of subjects saw men, 11% saw people, and the majority (56%) gave a D or W single response. There were onl:y two deteriorated men see in 1972-73, ar~d both refused Card IUI. Thus we fiind only slight substantiation of Brown's finding that men nowadays (the 1970's) see substantially more women on Card 111 than they did in years past. More women than men were seen, in 1950, 1960, and also today by men under 30 years of age. But in all age groups over
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Are Rorschach Responses Influenced by Society 's Change?
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LOUISE BATES AMES 30, men predominate over women as a response to Card 111. A trend in the direction whch Brown proposes does occur in the present study, i.e., a higher percentage of women responses is seen in 1970 than 10 or 20 years earlier in men under 30, in the 30-to-60-year-old age group and in presenile men. In the men under 30, this increase of women responses is substantial but seems due chiefly to a combining of the responses two women and two people. In the 30-to-60-year-old men, the increase is slighter and seems to result from a combining of the two women and the male and female categories. In presenile men, again, the larger 1970 figure results from there being fewer two people responses than earlier. These changes may indeed imply a greater readiness on the part of men today to name women when they see them on Card 111, rather than to say two people or male and female. But this is only a conjecture. At any rate, except for the young males under 30, other groups, whatever the decade, saw many more men than women on Card 111. Statistical analysis of responses to Card III is presented in Table 4. This analysis reveals that both differences between age groups (that is between subjects in their twenties, those in their thirties to sixties, and those over seventy) with decades of testing combined, and differences between decades with ages combined, were statistically significant. This supports our contention that in general one may expect a different response to Card I11 in men under 30 than in those over 30. Young men see more women; older men see mostly men. However, in agreement with Brown's hypothesis, there is a significant change in distribution of responses by men on Card I11 when all responses given in 1948-61 are compared -with those given in 1972-73. Responses of men to Card VII (see Table 3) are somewhat variable from age to age and from decade to decade, though all groups at all ages saw more women
than men. Thus though there does exist some tendency for more men in the 1970's to name women outright on Card I11 rather than to use the more ambiguous or neutral terms two people or male and female, assuming that our groups of subjects can be considered fairly comparable and typical, there is considerable similarity be tween responses of men tested in 1972-73 and those tested a decade or two earlier, to Cards I11 and VII. However, it is clear that there is substantial difference between responses of younger and older men. Men in their twenties in both our 1960 and 1970 samples saw many more women than men on Card 111. But men between 30 and 60 saw many more men than Iwomen, as do men over seventy, at least in that group who on the basis of the Rorschach can be classed as "normal elderly." As individuals deteriorate in old age, the two men response to Card I11 diminishes. In two groups d presenile subjects, seen respectively in 1960 and 1970, only about one-third of subjects saw men on 111. The less siexually defined people and animals responses predominated. Of deteriorated male subjects, very few saw men and none saw women. They either refused the blot or gave a miscel~aneous variety of non-human responses.
Comparison of Responses of Five Groups of 5 to 17 0-Year-Olds of Different Socio-Economic Status to Card 111 Table 5 gives comparative data for five different groups of Connecticut giirls and boys between the ages of 5 and 10, seen in 1948-50, 14157-60, 1959-62, 1964, and 1969-71. Subjects were of different socioeconomic status and varying intellectual levels. No co~~spicuous differences were evident, and no increase in the nurnber of females seen on Card I11 occurred in 1969-71 as compared to 1948-50. For girls, .D or W single responses predominated for every group from 1948 to 1970. Secondly, either two men or two animals occurred, except for late Gesell clinical girls for whom two people was the second most frequent response.
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Table 4 Percentage Distribution of Responses to Card I11 Popular Figures in Three Age Groups of Men Tested in Present and Earlier Decades
20-29 Years
Two men Two women Man and woman Two people Total
5%
9%
70-100 Years
30-60 Years
7%
55%
65%
60%
55%
All Ages Combined
41%
49%
43%
42
81
63
20
29
24
6
17
11
19
5
5
5
15
0
8
0
10
5
5
47
5
24
10
6
8
39
31
35
33
99
100
99
100
100
100
100
99
100
100 b
a
NT = total subjects tested; Np = number of subjects who respond with the P figures on 111. The percentages reported and the raw frequencies used in the singificance tests are based on the reduced (Np) totals. Note. Comparison of age groups with decades of testing combined (a vs b vs c): decades, with age groups combined (d vs e): X32 = 1 0 . 6 6 ; ~ < .02.
xs2 = 47.20; p < .001. Comparison of
r: ,$
U-
n
s
3
0s
2,
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Table 5 Comparison of Five Groups of 5- to 10-Year-01ds: Percentage of Responses to Card I11
Response
Two men Male & female Two women Two people Two animals Two other D or W single
Refusal a G = girl; B = boy
Gesell 1948-50 Mean I.Q. 118
Weston 1957-60 Mean I.Q. 110
North Haven 1959-62 Mean I.Q. 105
Abraham Lincoln 1964 Mean I.Q. 93
Late Gesell 1969-71
k
%
448
Are Rorschach Responses Influenced by Society's Change?
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Again for boys, at every age, a D or W single response was definitely the most frequent except for Weston subjects who gave as many animals as D or W single responses. In other groups, two animals or two men was the second leading response. Two women as a response did not exceed 3% except in late Gesell clinical girls where it reached a high point of 7%. Thus in the age range 5 to 10 years, in children of all socioeconomic levels at no time in the last 20 years were any significant number of females seen by either girls or boys examined by us.
Responses to Cards 111and VII Compared Brown's original hypothesis was that there might be a significant relationship between the response to Card 111 and to Card VII, and that from 40 to 50% of patients would offer a combination of men on I11 and women on VII. As it turned out, only 9.4% of his men subjects and 14.3% of h s women (mean 11.8%) gave such a combination. Consequently the conventionality of this pattern seemed disproven. Brown found, again contrary to his original hypothesis, that both sexes of his later group showed a highly significant preference for the &male-female combination. In his earlier subjects it was more customary for the subjects to see males on 111 and no human figures on VII. Findings of the present study do not bear out Brown's original expectation that it is quite usual for people to see men on 111 and women on VII. As Table 6 shows clearly, men on I11 and women on VII occur conspicuously in our earlier subjects, only in women between 30 and 40 (29%) and in both women and men between 40 and 50 (4276, 23%). In later subjects the combination is seen conspicuously only in men from 40 t o 50 (25%). Women on both cards are seen only in our early 30-to-40-year-old males (38%) and in our later 20-year-old males (25%). Most subjects of both sexes and at all ages give some combination of responses other than ma1eJfemale or femaleJmale, or both males or both females. Responses
to Card VII are very often either people or animals or a D or W single response. Constancy of Content Brown (1971) states, "The figures seen on Card I11 on a first examination are stubbornly resistant to change on subsequent examinations" (p. 247). Admittedly, as our own investigation has shown (Ames, 1960), there is a great constancy of content in any one subject's responses from one examination to the next: Content of Rorschach responses of 8 girls and 21 boys tested annually from 2 to 10 years, and of 35 girls and 30 boys tested annually from 10 to 16 years (not every subject available at every age) was analyzed t o determine the extent to which individual subjects gave identical responses from age to age. It was found that both girls and boys in the younger group gave consistent responses (same content on any one card on four or more consecutive tests) on a mean of 3.9 cards out of the total ten per subject. At older ages, means for constant responses per subject were 4.8 for girls, 5.0 for boys. The number of cards on which consistent responses are given increases with age. By far the majority of these consistent concepts fall among the so-called popular (or banal) responses: 87 percent of younger girls' responses, 70 percent of younger boys', 65 percent of older girls', 76 percent of older boys' fall into the popular category. Thus consistent responses of girls become less popular as they grow older, those of boys more popular. (p. 163).
In this earlier investigation all cards were considered. The present study considers only constancy of response to Card 111. The extent to which responses to Card 111 were identical in three successive examinations in shown in Table 7. For 5-to-10-year-old subjects, consistency of response was 25% in girls, and 62% in boys. For the 10-to-16-year-oldsubjects, this figure rose to 52% in girls, and remained about the same (61%) in boys. For 18-to-22-year-old subjects, consistency was less. Response remained exactly
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Table 6 Percentage of Individuals Giving Various Combinations of Responses to Cards I11 and VII
I
-
5-10 yrs.
11-16 yrs.
20 years
Response Men on 111, wanen on VII
2
Women on111 Men on VII
Women on both
O
Other Responses
a Groups seen in 1972-73; others are earlier subjects.
30-40 yrs.
40-50 yrs.
Normal Old
Presenile
I
Senile
450
Are Rorschach Responses Influenced by Society's Change? Table 7 Consistency of Response on Retesting with Card I11 5-10 yrs.
10-16 yrs. 18-22 yrs. 30-40 yrs.
Over 7oa
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8G 21B 35G 30B 25G 18B 7F 13M 15F 10M All 3 tests the same
25% 62% 52% 61% 20% 22%
Only 2 tests the same
b
b
b
b
40
61
69
57
40%20%
All or both different
b
b
b
b
40
17
31
14
60
80
All the same even though with varied wording
25
62
52
61
24
44
38
78
40
20
0% 29% b
b
a Only two sequential tests given. Figures not available. the same for three years in succession in 20% of the girls, 22% of the boys. This figure remained about the same in girls but in boys increased to 44% when a response was counted as consistent if it remained approximately the same even though the exact wording was not identical. When three successive annual responses to Card 111 of 30-to-40-year-olds were considered, the three responses were identical in no women but in 29% of the men. If we include responses which were approximately the same even though the wording was not identical, this figure rose substantially - to 38% in women, 78%in men. For very old people only two successive tests were available. Of these subjects, 40% of the women, and 20% of the men gave the same response on subsequent tests. This degree of constancy of response seems noteworthy, but it does not support Brown's description that responses are stubbornly resistant to change. In view of Brown's conclusion that the two sexes in our society, are becoming more alike, the marked sex differences in con-
stancy are noteworthy. For every age group except the very elderly, males are much more consistent than are females.
Discussion and Conclusions Present findings call into question or contradict several widely held beliefs as to the meaning of responses to Rorschach Card 111. First, it is rather generally assumed that the sex of a subject's responses to Card I11 gives evidence as to his sexual identification. Most examiners appear to expect that both males and females will give more male than female responses to this card; and for males to give a female response is sometimes suspect. (However, some have maintained that seeing figures of the opposite sex to one's own is indicative of a confusion of sex role, and Hammer goes so far as to state that for a female to see a male or no human at all is almost pathognomonic of emotional disturbance.) Present findings question these assumptions. They do not indicate that the response to Card I11 gives special evidence as to sexual identification.
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LOUISE BATES AMES Female subjects in the present study see many more men than women at seven of the age levels reviewed and at the eighth, see neither men nor women. Of males studied, 20-year-old males see definitely more women than men - 5% men, 36% women in early subjects; 8% men, 76% women in later subjects. In 304040-year-old males, 30% see women on Card 111; in 30-to-60-year-old males, 18% to 35% see women. A second notion, recently proposed, is Brown's reporting that the number of males seeing female figures on Card I11 has increased substantially within the last decade. He attributes this change to a blurring or blending of sex roles and a change in popular attitudes toward sex role. Our findings are that as early as the 1940's and 1950's a very substantial number of presumably normal males do see females on Card 111. The youngest males, men in their twenties, in 1960 as well as in 1972 saw more females than males on Card 111. Admittedly this number was larger in 1972, apparently due to the fact that young men in 1972 seemed to combine their two women and two people responses into the one response two women. Adult males between the ages of 30 and 60, both in 1950 and 1972, gave more male than female responses to Card 111. Again, the number of women seen in 1972 was slightly larger than in 1950, perhaps due to the fact that the earlier ambiguous male or female responses were now, apparently, given as women. Normal elderly males, and intact and medium presenile males, also, saw more men than women on 111. Again the number of women seen in 1972 was slightly larger than in the I 950's. Thus there are admittedly somewhat more f e d e responses to Card 111 given by males tested in 1972 than by males tested in the two decades just earlier, but the predominance of females over males in the 20-year-old group was already clearly evident in 1958-61. Though our findings do agree with Brown that there is some increase in the number of femles given by males on
Card 111 today as compared to years past, the increase seen by us does not seem large enough to warrant his cor~clusion that om society has changed to the extent that sex roles have become blurred or blended. The finding that increase in female figures seen by males among our subjects appears to Tes?Jlt from a decrease of such responses as two people or male and female and an increase in the more forthright two women, does give support to Brown's suggestion that males in the 1970's may b~emore free to express the sex of the image as it appears to them and may feel less constrained to give a totally conventional response. However, present findings indicate that it is by no means new or unusual for male subjects to see females on Card 111. In another area our findings do not agree with Brown's 1971 statement that figures seen on Card I11 on a first examination are stubbornly resistant to change in subsequent examinations Perhaps the main significance of present findings is that they constitute a very strong warning as to the danger of a "sign" approach to Rorschach interpretation. Hammer's (1966) statement that "for a female to see a male or no human at all on II1[ is almost pathognomlonic of emotional disturbance" (p. 161) is clearly contradicted. It seems fair to agree that the naming of a figure of the opposite sex to the subject, in a secord which shows other signs of disturbed or confused sexuality, may be considered as a possible Further confirmation of supposed confused sexuality. But since naming of a figure of the opposite sex is at many ages more common than naming a figure of one's same sex, present findings contradict the notion that it is automatically a sign of pathology. Interpretation of any Rorschach response should, perhaps, always be taken more as a hypothesis, to be considered in the light of all other evidence, than as a "sign" of some special attribute or abnormality. The present study, carried out in response to Brown's proposals, bears
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Are Rorschach Responses Influenced by Society's Change?
several warnings. The first is that common assumptions such as that people "normally" see on Card I11 figures of their own sex and that the response to Card I11 is a good clue to any subject's feelings about his or her own sexuality, should be taken with strong reservations. Second, there is a danger in regarding any Rorschach "sign" as a certainty. Third, one should be extremely cautious in making a hypothetical assumption about the meaning of some particular Rorschach response and then generalizing from the responses of a single group of subjects to things that are going on in society. Our basic findings were that it is not unusual for any individual to see figures of the opposite sex to his own on Rorschach Card 111, and that it seems to be the age of the subject more than the decade in which he lives that primarily determines response. Younger males, more than older, tend to see female figures on Card 111.
References Ames, L. B. Constancy of content in Rorschach response. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 1960,96, 145-164. Brown, F. Changes in sexual identification and role over a decade and their implications. Journal of Psychology, 1971, 77, 229-251. Hammer, M. A. A comparison of responses by clinic and normal adults to Rorschach Card 111 human figure area. Journal of Projective Techniques & Personality Assessment, 1966, 30, 161-162. Nelson, M., Wolfson, W., & LaCascio, R. Sexual identification in response t o Rorschach Card 111. Journal of Projective Techniques, 1959, 23, 354-356. Schafer, R. The clinical application of psychological tests. New York: International University Press, 1948. Louise B. Ames, PhD Gesell Institute of Child Development 310 Prospect St. New Haven, Connecticut 065 11 Received: November 27,1973 Revised: July 19, 1974
