Concurrent validity of anxiety-related Rorschach variables in an adolescent population

The purpose of the present study was to explore one of the still little researched aspects of Exner's Comprehensive System: the validity of the anxiety-related variables. There have been meager attempts at validating Rorschach variables with self-report measures or other methods, and few have specifically addressed anxiety-related variables. Those that have focused on anxiety produced conflicting results. Rorschach variables believed to be related to anxiety and pertinent to the present research included the determinants diffuse shading ( Y), achromatic color (C'), and texture ( T), and inanimate movement (m), as well as high Lambda style (L), and content categories human detail ( Hd), anatomy (An), and X-ray (Xy).;In order to assess these variables' validity, adolescents' scores from a conjointly administered Rorschach inkblot test and a self-report anxiety measure, the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS), were analyzed. The data for this study were gathered previously as part of routine high school psychological evaluations. It was hypothesized that this archival investigation would find the Rorschach variables able to differentiate between varying levels of reported anxiety and also reveal significant positive correlations between the anxiety-related variables and RCMAS scores. Though no support was found for the first hypothesis, inanimate movement (m) and the sum of anatomy and x-ray content (An+Xy) were found to be significantly and positively correlated with Total Anxiety scores and RCMAS subscales from the entire sample and subsamples. There were also significant and unexpectedly negative relationships found between RCMAS subscales and achromatic color (C') as well as texture (T) in subsamples of the population. These relationships along with suggestions for future research were discussed.