Effects of Task Orientation on Sexual Bias in TAT Administration

Summary

Sixty-four males and 64 females selected TAT cards expecting to test same and cross-sexed clients under achievement-oriented and control conditions. The hypotheses that females would select more task-oriented cards than males, regardless of client sex, and that males would select more sexually- oriented cards, especially when testing female clients, were not supported. Both males and females selected more achievement related cards under achievement-oriented conditions, and no differences occurred in either experimental or control conditions in their selection of sexual-romantic cards. Results were discussed in relation to previous studies of examiner expectancy and sexual bias effects.