Socioeconomic Status and the Diagnostic Significance of Healthy and Unhealthy Group Rorschach Content

Summary

Three hypotheses were put to test, using group Rorschach protocols and a content scoring approach: (a) when neutral content is disregarded, upper social class subjects (Ss) will report predominantly “healthy” group Rorschach content while lower social class Ss will report predominantly “unhealthy” content; (b) perceiving “unhealthy” content will prove an abnormal diagnostic indicant only among upper social class Ss; (c) these findings will hold across racial identity. Rorschach content data and independent measures of personality were obtained from five samples of adolescent Ss differing in race and social class. The experimental hypotheses were supported. A theoretical interpretation making use of social class values is presented to explain the findings.