TAT Responses in Relation to Induced Motivational Set ... - medIND

© Journal of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology
July 2006, Vol. 32, No. 3, 235-240.
TAT Responses in Relation to Induced Motivational
Set and Reasoning Ability
N. Annalakshmi
Bharathiar University, Coimbatore
The present study examines the effect of motivational set induced through instruction
and reasoning ability on the extent of expression of needs in the stories produced
by the subjects to the TAT. Five TAT Cards having special relevance to tapping the
needs achievement, affiliation, aggression, autonomy and abasement were
administered under three motivation conditions, viz. responding under instruction to
be neutral, fake-good and fake-bad to the subjects. The TAT was group administered
and the protocols were scored for expression of particular need using a ten point
rating scale. The level of intellectual ability of the subjects was rated on a three point
rating scale applied to each protocol under neutral condition. Criterion groups of
representing low, moderate and high levels of reasoning ability were formed on the
basis of rating scores on intellectual ability. The findings reveal that the motivational
set induced by instructions consistently produces significant effect on the expression
of all the five needs studied, in the protocols as expected. The reasoning ability also
has significant effect on expression of three out of the five needs. No interaction
effect between motivational set and level of reasoning ability has been observed on
the test performance.
The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is
a very well known and widely used projective
test and is of perennial interest to researchers
(Cogan et al., 2002; Phelps, 2003; Morgan,
2004). In recent years expert are divided over
the merits of projective tests including TAT
(Erica Goode, 2001). It purports to assess a
person’s patterns of thought, attitudes,
observational capability, and emotional
reactions on the basis of his responses to
ambiguous test materials. The TAT Cards are
designed to elicit different needs. Certain cards
are designed to give a premium to certain
chosen needs. The TAT like any other
projective personality test is criticized for
having the scope to deliberately alter the
expression of oneself in the response protocol.
Individuals seeking job and also trained by
specialists to produce TAT stories connoting
various expressions may falsify the protocols
and foul the assessment. This has great
implication in the using the test for making
assessment of candidates in a competitive
selection. Hence it is important to research
periodically on the effect of motivational set
on the performance on the TAT stories.
Motivational set could be induced through
instructions (Eysenck, 1973). By manipulating
the instructions given to the subjects
responding to TAT it is possible to alter the
motivation with which they respond to the test
stimuli. Thus, it is likely that different sets of
instructions may induce different motivations
in the subjects and the production of stories
might be affected by the motivational

332 TAT- Motivational Set and Reasoning Ability
conditions under which they were
produced. Thus instructions to fake good and
instructions to fake bad may induce motivation
to manipulate the degree of expression of
specific needs in the TAT protocols, which
might vary from spontaneous responding to
the test stimuli under instructions respond in
a neural manner. Any effect the motivational
set may have on the expression of needs in
the protocols produced by the subjects will
have its impact on interpretation of the
protocols as reflecting the personality
dynamics of the subject. Under such conditions
the motivational set might confound the
interpretation of the protocols.
Research Question
Whether individuals could voluntarily
enhance or discount the expression of their
needs in their responses to TAT?
Objective
The objective of the study is to examine
the extent to which the TAT responses could
be varied deliberately by the subjects. Thus
an attempt was made to study the scope for
deliberately altering the expressions of the
needs by the subjects to one of the widely
used projective techniques, viz., The Thematic
Apperception Test (TAT). The findings have
implication for using the projective techniques
as a valid tool of personality assessment in
cases where there is a chance of the
respondent attempting to deliberately change
the expression of needs in the test.
Hypotheses
The following hypotheses were formulated
for testing.
1. There will be no difference in the degree
of needs expressed in the protocols elicited
under different conditions of motivation.
2. There will be no difference in the degree
of needs expressed in the protocols produced
by subjects exhibiting high, moderate, and low
levels of reasoning ability.
3. There will be no interaction between the
conditions of motivation and level of reasoning
ability in the degree of needs expressed in the
protocols.
Design
The hypotheses involve comparison of the
protocols elicited under different conditions of
motivation and also comparison of the criterion
groups representing three levels of reasoning.
This necessitates obtaining TAT protocols
produced under different conditions of
motivation induced through instructions and
evolving criterion groups from the sample
representing high, moderate, and low levels
of reasoning for the purpose of comparison.
Therefore, a 3X3 factorial design was
employed to execute the basic research plan
of the study.
Method
Sample
The sample for the study was drawn from
college population, 60 students both male and
female, undergoing graduate program in
science were selected. The age varied from
18 to 23 years. Students from first, second,
and third year of the graduate program were
included in the sample.
Tool
The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT),
Indian Adaptation of Murray by Uma
Chaudhary (1960) was used to elicit protocols
from the subjects.
Procedure
Of the various cards developed by Uma
Choudhary (1960) only the cards purporting
to elicit responses relevant to five different
needs were chosen for administration. Thus
only the cards relevant to identifying the
manifestation of the need for achievement
(Card-I), the need for affiliation (Card-II), the
need for aggression (Card-V), the need for

N. Annalakshmi 237
autonomy (Card-X) and the need for
abasement (Card-VIII) were utilized. The
choice of the specific cards for administration
was based on simplicity of characteristics of
the stimuli and the capacity of the stimuli to
invoke and elicit the commonly found dominant
needs from the individual subjects.
The original instructions developed by
Murray (1943) for administering the TAT were
used in the study. The cards were group
administered to the subjects using over-headprojector.
Not more than 20 subjects were
allowed to participate in each session of
administration of the cards. Each card was
projected on a screen for 30 seconds under
each condition and the subjects were allowed
5 minutes to write their responses immediately
after the card has been taken off the
projection.
The administration of TAT was done under
three distinctly different conditions pertaining
to response set. The first condition is neutral.
The second and third conditions were relevant
to creating a set to faking-good and a set of
faking-bad respectively. Under neutral
condition the subjects were instructed to
respond to stimuli in a spontaneous manner
without any inhibition after involving long drawn
out thought process. Under the condition to
fake-good, the subjects were instructed to
make effort to maximize or enhance the
expression of the need felt by them in a
deliberate manner. In the condition to fakebad,
the subjects were instructed to make
effort to minimize or decrease the expression
of the need felt by them in a thoughtful
manner.
Construction of Criterion Groups
The criterion groups representing high,
moderate, and low levels of reasoning ability
were constructed from the sample based on
their scores on a Rating Scale for Reasoning
Ability adopted for this purpose. The rating
scale involved scores ranging from 1 to 3. For
the purpose of rating only the responses given
by the subjects under the neutral condition of
administering the TAT were considered. The
five protocols given by the subject in response
to the cards presented to him/her under
neutral conditions were each rated using the
rating scale for expression of intellectual ability.
An overall rating of the intellectual ability was
obtained for each subject averaging the rating
obtained by him on the five cards administered
to him/her. The subjects with a score of 1, 2
and 3 on the scale were allotted to groups
representing low, moderate and high level of
intellectual ability respectively. Thus the three
criterion groups were formed and there were
30 subjects in the first group, 15 susubjects
in the second group and 15 subjects in the
third group.
Scoring for Expression of the Needs
The TAT protocols elicited from the
subjects under the various conditions were
carefully scanned through by the investigator
and scored for the expression of the various
needs expressed there by using a ten point
rating scale. The extent of the expression of a
particular need in a protocol was assessed for
a maximum score of ten and the scores
obtained by a subject on all the five cards
administered were averaged to obtain over all
score for him/her on intellectual ability.
Statistical Analysis
The present experimental set up gives rise
to 3 X 3 Factorial arrangements where in three
levels of motivational conditions and three
levels of intellectual ability were involved as
factors. This facilitates applying analysis of
variance to assess the main effect and the
interaction effect of the variables examined in
the study on expression of the needs on TAT
protocol. The analysis of variance was followed
with specific comparison of means using
Honestly Significant Difference (Welkowitzs et
al.1999).
Results
The results of the statistical analysis are
presented in Table 1 and 2.

238 TAT-Motivational Set and Reasoning Ability
Table 1 provides means of the scores for the expression of various needs by the three
groups based on intellectual ability under three conditions of motivational set.
Table 1: Mean Scores on Expression of needs of the Subjects of the Various Groups
under different conditions.
Neutral Condition Condition Fake-Good Condition Fake-bad
(N=60) (N=60) (N=60)
Need Group Group Group Group Group Group Group Group Group
Expressed I II III I II III I II III
(N=30) (N=15) (N=15) (N=30)(N=15) (N=15) (N=30) (N=15) (N=15)
Achievement 4.4 2.67 2.67 6.23 4.53 3.07 0.5 0 0.47
Affiliation 1.73 1.47 0.93 4.93 4.53 2.6 0.77 0.33 0.33
Aggression 4.9 4.6 2.8 6.13 6.2 4.73 1.93 1.4 0.53
Autonomy 1.53 0.6 1.27 4.17 4.93 2.67 0.63 1 0.2
Abasement 4.4 5.8 4.47 7.4 8.33 5.67 3.33 2.73 3.33
The analysis of variance showed that the
overall difference between the motivational
conditions was consistent for all the five needs
: n Achievement [F(2)=37.52, p

N. Annalakshmi 239
n Affili Neutral 2.78 ** 0.92 * Group I 0.37 ns 1.19 ns
ation Fake
Good 3.70 ** Group II 0.82 ns
Fake
Bad
Group III
n Aggre Neutral 1.50 ** 2.85 ** Group I 0.28 ns 1.51 ns
ssion Fake
Good 4.35 ** Group II 1.37 ns
Fake
Bad
Group III
n Auto- Neutral 2.76 ** 0.33 ns Group I
nomy Fake
Good 3.06 ** Group II
Fake
Bad
Group III
n Abase Neutral 2.43 ** 1.64 * Group I 0.48 ns 0.62 ns
ment Fake
Good 4.07 ** Group II 1.20 ns
Fake
Bad
Group III
Discussion
The findings of the study have shown that
motivational set has a significant effect on the
degree of expression of the needs for
achievement, affiliation, aggression, autonomy,
and abasement in the TAT protocols. Thus
instructions seem to have successfully
produced motivational set appropriate to the
conditions and this has considerable effect on
the performance of the subjects on TAT. A
significant pattern has emerged in the
manifestation of the needs for achievement,
affiliation, aggression, autonomy and
abasement with regard to the motivational
effect.
In the case of need achievement, need
affiliation, need aggression, and need
abasement, the mean scores of the subjects
under fake-good condition is highest and the
mean achievement score of the subjects under
fake-bad is lowest and the mean scores differ
significantly from one another from condition
to condition. While the same trend of means is
confirmed in the case of need abasement; the
difference between the mean scores obtained
under neutral condition and the fake-good
condition, and between the mean scores
obtained under fake-good condition and fakebad
condition are found to be significant. In
the case just cited no significant difference was
found between the scores obtained under
neutral condition and fake-bad condition.
However, the trend of the means in all the cases
with regard to comparisons of the expression
of the five needs on the TAT administered
under the three conditions of motivational set
conforms to our expectation. Thus, it is found
that motivational set has a significant effect on
the performance of the subjects on TAT in an
expected manner.
In the case of reasoning ability, it is found
that overall differences in the expression of the
needs for achievement, affiliation, aggression
and abasement have emerged significant as
found through the ANOVA. However even the
overall effect found in these cases has been
found to be masked in the specific comparisons
made of the high, moderate and low groups

240 TAT-Motivational Set and Reasoning Ability
on reasoning ability for all these four needs.
The only exception to this trend is that of the
comparison made between the high and low
groups on reasoning ability wherein a
significant difference between the means in
favor of the high groups is reported. The
failure of the overall significant differences to
show in specific comparisons in the case of
comparison between different criterion groups
on reasoning ability is intriguing. The
complexity of the reasoning ability seems to
have contributed for the insignificant interaction
between motivational set and reasoning ability
herein observed. Further studies may be
needed with more sensitive assessment of
reasoning ability of the subjects to clarify the
relationship between reasoning ability and test
performance.
Experimental conditions could be
manipulated by adopting appropriate
instructions to induce different levels of
arousal and hence the motivational set as
shown by Eysenck (1973). The findings
suggest that induced motivational set could
produce the effect intended by the subject on
his/her performance on a projective test.
Motivational set confound assessment of
individuals in test situation.
Review of published studies of the TAT over
a 10 year period identified that some
respondents may display high levels of a given
attribute on the TAT not because they possess
high levels of this attribute, but because they
are fantasizing about possessing high levels
of this attribute (Vane, 1991; Loevinger, 1987).
It is also argued that due to what is called the
inhibitory effect individuals can exhibit low
levels of an attribute on the TAT not because
they possess low levels of this attribute, but
because they are repressing or otherwise
inhibiting the expression of this attribute. These
effects can be invoked as ad hoc immunizing
tactics (Popper, 1959) to explain away negative
findings in TAT. The findings of the present
study are explicable invoking Walter Mitty
(Loevinger, 1987) and inhibition effects
(Lilienfeld, et al., 2000) as in the case of
studies reporting negative findings on TAT.
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Received: April 04, 2006
Accepted: June 23, 2006
N. Annalakshmi, PhD is Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, Bharathiar University,
Coimbatore – 641 046