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

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.