The Psychobox

My friend, Dawn, gave me The Psychobox a year or so ago. I thought it was a game at first, but it turns out that it is a box of cards that reflect different aspects of experimental psychology.

Inkblot Test

The card reads, "Inkblots have long been regarded as suggestive prompts to projective fantasies." Developed by the Swiss psychiatrist, Hermann Rorschach, the test is supposed to gauge responses to "ten symmetrical inkblots, created by a vertical fold, and presented on printed cards." I've always thought of this test as a kind of divination, like having your palm or your runes read, but psychologists still use it. The problem I have with this test is that its value is dependent on the skill of the person who is subjectively determining the results. I just don't have enough blind trust to be able to accept this test as being completely valid. Those who practice the art of Rorschach testing would disagree with my assessment.

The Perceptual Rigidity Test

The card describes this test as follows:

To perform this test you should make a mask by cutting an aperture the size of the individual images into the center of a sheet of paper. This can be maneuvered to cover all the pictures but one at any time, starting at the tip left or bottom right. The person performing the task should describe what is sen as each subsequent picture is revealed and all the others (including those seen so far) are masked. The ideas behind the original test were developed by an American-sponsored international group of social psychologists in the mid-1940's, at the end of a world war fought against Nazism and fascism. They were interested in defining those traits in personality that led to political authoritarianism: extreme 'rigidity' correlated, they thought, with the need for security and a faith in hierarchies.

I think what I like best about The Psychobox is learning the history behind the different tests. The cards are an interesting, educational diversion.