Psychobook: Games, Tests, Questionnaires, Histories - Julian Rothenstein (2016)

Chapter 6. Further Tests

Word Association Test

This test is closely associated with Carl Jung, who developed it at the beginning of the last century. (His famous lecture “The Association Method” was published in 1910.) A list of words of different types (nouns, verbs, adjectives, abstract, concrete, etc.) is read out to the person being tested, who, after each word, responds as quickly as possible with the first word that occurs to him or her. The analyst notes the speed and intensity of reactions to the different words, and draws inferences about the underlying reasons for different responses. Responses are also analyzed by type (these “types” differ from clinician to clinician): e.g., opposites (dark/light); associations (night/dream); definitions (table/furniture); predicates, in which the response signals a judgment (knife/dangerous, flower/pretty). These types of response are collated and related to response times, and patterns and recurrences are noted and analyzed. The following is Jung’s own list, as published in the 1910 lecture.

Many “associations” are not, of course, purely a function of the individual mind, but simply reflect the frequent co-occurrence of the words in the language environment, e.g., cross/road, left/right, top/class.

1. head

2. green

3. water

4. to sing

5. dead

6. long

7. ship

8. to pay

9. window

10. friendly

11. to cook

12. to ask

13. cold

14. stem

15. to dance

16. village

17. lake

18. sick

19. pride

20. to cook

21. ink

22. angry

23. needle

24. to swim

25. voyage

26. blue

27. lamp

28. to sin

29. bread

30. rich

31. tree

32. to prick

33. pity

34. yellow

35. mountain

36. to die

37. salt

38. new

39. custom

40. to pray

41. money

42. foolish

43. pamphlet

44. despise

45. finger

46. expensive

47. bird

48. to fall

49. book

50. unjust

51. frog

52. to part

53. hunger

54. white

55. child

56. to take care

57. lead pencil

58. sad

59. plum

60. to marry

61. house

62. dear

63. glass

64. to quarrel

65. fur

66. big

67. carrot

68. to paint

69. part

70. old

71. flower

72. to beat

73. box

74. wild

75. family

76. to wish

77. cow

78. friend

79. luck

80. lie

81. deportment

82. narrow

83. brother

84. to fear

85. stork

86. false

87. anxiety

88. to kiss

89. bride

90. pure

91. door

92. to choose

93. hay

94. contented

95. ridicule

96. to sleep

97. month

98. nice

99. woman

100. to abuse

Carl Jung, photographer and date unknown

Sentence Completion Test

This projective test requires subjects to complete the following sentences in a way that has some meaning for them. Of course this instruction will not necessarily elicit a truthful completion, and some question beginnings are wide open to fantastic and fabricated completions. Who would know if the completed sentence reflects conscious or unconscious thoughts and feelings? How could they know, one way or the other? What do you make of your own efforts?

The Color Test

A famous color test was devised by the Swiss psychologist Max Lüscher and first published in 1947. Simple in application, its sophistication lies in its careful matching of attributes not only to the colors preferred by the viewer but to those colors less liked, those toward which he or she feels merely neutral, and those actively disliked. Analysis of the accumulated data, it is claimed, provides the professional tester with a complex psychological profile of the person tested, with clues to willpower, commitment and motivation, emotional and mental conditions, interpersonal skills and aspirations, and much else. The analytic guidelines provided for the test are intriguingly diverse (and sometimes confused) in their categories. Someone who likes brown best, for example, “wishes to charm, attract and enchant” others, while someone who is neutral about green is “a friendly person, who bonds easily and could take pleasure in eroticism.” (That equivocal “could” is interesting: it is possible, it seems, to be neutral about green and yet not to take pleasure in the erotic.) Actively disliking purple means, according to the test, that you “want to experience all life has to offer without having to suffer from nervous exhaustion.” (Might it not be the case that those who really like purple might also have a keen appetite for life, and a desire to stay lively?) The interpretations in this book are greatly simplified adaptations, and this generalizing approach leaves out of consideration many of the subtleties of the test as administered by professional experts. The test has many applications, having been used, for example, in selection procedures for job candidates and as the basis of industrial interior decor intended to increase productivity. Its efficacy in these various circumstances is difficult to evaluate. The language of the test key has at times a remarkable similarity to that of horoscopes.

Overleaf: From the color test devised for this book, choose the colors that you actively like, those you feel neutral about, and those you actively dislike. Then turn to page 187 for interpretations.

If you were a musical instrument which of these would you be?

VIOLIN

DOUBLE BASS

PIANO

DRUM

ACCORDION

SAXOPHONE

TRIANGLE

FLUTE

BAGPIPES