Rorschach Comprehensive System Data for a Sample of 141 Adult Nonpatients From Denmark

Abstract

A sample (n = 141) of Danish nonpatients 25–50 years of age, never hospitalized with a psychiatric diagnosis and currently employed, was demographically representative of two geographical areas of Copenhagen with different social strain. The sample, as well as 45 persons not currently employed, was tested with the Rorschach (Exner, 1995), MMPI–2 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989), Word Association Test (Ivanouw, 1999b), WAIS Comprehension subtest (Hess, 1974), and SCL–90–R (Olsen, Mortenson, & Bech, 2006). Half of the persons contacted volunteered for the study. There was no difference in rate of volunteering between a standard no-feedback condition and a feedback condition; the latter, however, tended to attract more psychologically resourceful persons. The employed persons tended to appear healthier than the not employed. Response style of the subjects, quality of the Rorschach protocols, reliability of scoring, and the effect of the data being grouped on geographical area and examiner were examined. Form level, color, texture, cooperative movement, and EA were lower than in the Comprehensive System (CS; n = 450) sample, but higher than in nine international nonpatient Rorschach studies. Unique for the Danish sample was a low number of animal movement answers. The Rorschach data showed women to be healthier than men. Differences in Rorschach variables based on educational level were small.

Acknowledgments

Some of the data from this study were presented at the 16th International Congress of Rorschach and projective methods, Amsterdam, 1999; at the Annual Scientific Exchange of Society for Personality Assessment, Albuquerque, March 25, 2000; at the 5th Congress of the European Rorschach Association for the Comprehensive System, Paris, September 1–2, 2000; and at the Annual Scientific Exchange of the Society for Personality Assessment, Philadelphia, March 14–18, 2001. Tables and statistical analyses from the study excluded because of space limitations are available from the author at www.rorschach.dk

I am grateful for economic support received from the Ivan Nielsen fond for specielle sindslidelser and Kommunehospitalets jubilæumsfond and for the support of chief director Bo Andersen, Kommunehospitalet, for making the facilities and logistics available during the study. I am indebted to Københavns Statistiske Kontor for producing tables of population data for the study. I am grateful to psychologists Jannie Christiansen, Henriette K Elkjær, and Eva Neerup for their work as project secretaries and research assistants, and to the following psychologists for working as research assistants: Christine Agner, Stine Malling Andersen, Mildrid Brandt, Henriette Gottschalck, Anne Haastrup, Laila Henriksen, Susanne Jeppesen, Jannie Kildested, Henriette Kirkeby, Karen Ida Kofod, Tove Lindemann, Michael Lundh, Annette Overby, and Tone Steffensen.

Notes

¹Pires found Lambda M = 1.73, SD = 2.33, n = 137 for persons with 0–6 years of education; M = 0.90, SD = 0.86, n = 111 for 7–12 years; and M = 0.58, SD = 0.39, n = 61 for 13+ years of education, effect size f = 0.28, a medium effect size (f = 0.10 to be considered as small, f = 0.25 medium, and f = 0.40 large [Cohen, 1988]).

^a Such as living in a commune or with a cohabiter.

^b Includes couples living together without a marriage license.

^c Missing educational information for one person.

^d Introversive, ambitent, and extratensive data are for nonavoiding persons (Lambda < 1).

²Tables of these data are available from the author at www.rorschach.dk

³The text of the letter may be obtained from the author at www.rorschach.dk

⁴In order to maximize statistical power for the ANOVA of tester differences all valid protocols (n = 186) were used.

⁵For f Cohen considers 0.10 to be a small difference, 0.25 as a medium, and 0.40 as a large effect size.

^a Indicates multiple modes.

⁶At the midwinter meeting of the Society for Personality Assessment, New Orleans, 1998.

⁷Computed using Janson's Rorschach Research Utilities (Janson, 1997). Iota has the same interpretation of magnitude as Kappa. Iota is, similar to any other chance-corrected agreement index, dependent on sample variance, and, thus, may underestimate interscorer reliability of variables with low base rates.

⁸An often-used yardstick for understanding Kappa/ICC is to consider values < .40 as poor, .40–.59 as fair, .60–.74 as good, and .75–1.0 as excellent.

⁹ Constricted meaning conservative, giving very little material, being cautious, and showing oneself very little; dilated meaning the opposite—giving much material, showing oneself very much, and including information indicative of psychopathology. The latter style may also take the form of a playful, nonserious approach to the task, sometimes seen with students (Weiner, 2001).

¹⁰ h is a difference between two ϕ, one for each proportion, p. ϕ is calculated as 2arcsin(p)².

¹¹For both d and h Cohen considers .20 to be a small effect size, .50 as a medium, and .80 as a large effect size.

¹²For these comparisons “introversive” includes avoidant–introvert and “extratensive” includes avoidant–extratensive.

¹³Cohen recommends w = .10 to be considered as small, w = .30 as medium, and w = .50 as large.

¹⁴For one person, educational level was not noted.

¹⁵Results from the total sample of 191 persons were reported in a congress presentation (Ivanouw, 2000).

¹⁶On both effect size measures d and h, 0–.35 are considered small, .36–.65 as medium, and 0.66+ as large.

¹⁷The data can be found at www.rorschach.dk

¹⁸Only four studies had information about this variable.

¹⁹One examiner had a rather low R (M = 17.4, SD = 1.14), but she contributed only 5 protocols and did not differ systematically from the other examiners on variables with no linear relation to R. As the influence of her data on the sample means of R and R-dependent variables showed itself to be low, her protocols were not excluded.