Thematic Apperception Test

The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) (author Henry A. Murray; early coauthor Christiana Morgan) was published by Harvard University Press (http://www.hup.harvard.edu) in 1943 and is currently distributed by Harcourt Assessment, Inc. (http://www.harcourtassessment.com). It is a widely used performance-based personality assessment technique consisting of 31 achromatic cards. The cards contain scenes portraying either a solitary individual, individuals in diverse interpersonal situations, or landscapes. The pictures vary in their levels of ambiguity and detail. For example, one card features a young woman standing in the foreground of a rural scene with two individuals in various poses behind her, and another card is entirely blank. Examiners typically choose a subset of the cards to present, and the instructions may vary. Generally, however, the examinee is asked to create a story about each scene that includes a description of what is happening in the picture, what led up to this event, what the characters are thinking and feeling, and what the outcome is. The stories are often considered to contain projected material reflecting an individual's drives, motives, conflicts, needs, emotions, and other personality dynamics. The test generally takes about 1 to 2 hours to administer, depending on the number of cards that are chosen for presentation, and can be completed in one sitting or across time.

Because there are a number of ways the test is administered and scored, examiners may use a variety of methods for interpreting the stories produced by examinees. They may rely on clinical inference, standardized ratings systems, or both. A number of quantitative rating methods exist for use in clinical practice or in research, and although there is little adequate reliability and validity data available for the TAT itself, many of the scoring systems report their own psychometric properties. Examples of existing scoring systems include those that measure an individual's object relations, ego defense mechanisms, communication deviance, problem solving, and motives.

Although the TAT was designed for use with both children and adults, additional versions of the test (i.e., the Children's Apperception Test and the Senior Apperception Test) have been created for more specific populations. Others have designed TAT cards for use with specific racial groups to address a concern about the TAT's cross-cultural applicability, though these versions do not appear to be widely used.