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Prejudice, truth, or misperception: The effect of socioeconomic status on Rorschach inferences
Abstract
Although past studies have documented an inverse relationship between Rorschach judgments and patient socioeconomic status, a variety of confounding factors, from inexperienced clinicians to inconsistencies in the stimulus materials, made both the results and their accurate interpretation problematic. In addition, no studies of adult protocols have been undertaken since the ubiquitous spread of the Exner scoring system this past decade, a spread in part spurred by the hope of reducing subjective interpretation errors. In assessing the relationship between Rorschach interpretation and patient socioeconomic class, the present study attempts to resolve prior methodological problems and more accurately reflect current clinical practice. To this end a diagnostically ambiguous completed Rorschach protocol--including verbatim transcript, Exner scores, structural summary, percentages and ratios--was constructed and disguised to suggest an authentic adult protocol from a psychiatric facility. The demographic facesheet and the verbatim transcript were varied to represent two distinct socioeconomic classes (upper middle class, represented by a well-educated architect; and lower/working class, represented by a construction worker who did not complete high school). Otherwise, the protocols were identical. The two protocols were randomly distributed to experienced Rorschach testers who had good familiarity with the Exner scoring system. Accompanying the protocols was a three-page questionnaire soliciting responses regarding a variety of diagnostic and treatment issues. T-tests for socioeconomic status were performed on the 31 usable questionnaires, resulting in significant findings for subject inferences on intelligence, conventionality of thought, aspiration/achievement orientation, moral/ethical sensibility, and dangerousness to others. In all cases, the lower socioeconomic protocol was judged more negatively. Additional trends and anomalies are presented and discussed here, particularly with an eye to elucidating the complex issue of whether subject inferences represent class bias or reality expectation. Additional social psychological research on perceptual error and stereotyping is examined to enlarge the interpretive basis for explaining the significant data.
Subject Area
Social psychology
Recommended Citation
Morgan, Charles R, "Prejudice, truth, or misperception: The effect of socioeconomic status on Rorschach inferences" (1992). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9233115.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9233115