There are a variety of testing procedures used for the assessment of psychological traits and behavior, or for measuring some specialized aspect of ability. According to Groth-Marnat (2003), projective tests attempt to measure personality based on the theory that individuals tend to project their own unconscious attitudes into ambiguous situations. While the best known of the projective tests is the Rorschach Inkblot Test, The Thematic Apperception Test (where apperception refers to the assimilation of perceptual stimuli and conceptual memory information into a consistent representation) is one also one of the most frequently used of the projective tests (Cramer, 1996).
The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive description and discussion of the Thematic Apperception Test. To this end, the paper provides a brief description and general overview of the test, followed by a discussion of its construction and psychometric properties (e.g., validity, test-retest reliability, internal consistency, etc.), test administration procedures and its scoring and interpretation methods.
Regarding the general purpose and features of the TAT, Aronow, Weiss and Reznikoff (2001) report that it was originally developed by Christiana D. Morgan and Henry A. Murray for the purpose of revealing underlying psychodynamic features of test-takers' personality such as their internal conflicts, dominant drives, interests, motives, and so forth. Until the 1970s, it was mostly used to study emotionally disturbed individuals, but as the human potential movement (the humanistic school of thought in psychology) began to grow, the TAT's use was more frequently trained toward the purpose of helping clients to better understand themselves and to stimulate their own personal growth.
In their description of the TAT, Pearson Assessments (2004) notes that the test consists of 31 picture cards, about 20 of which are selected out and shown to test-ta...