The Relationship Between TAT Measures, Performance on an Intelligence Test, and Questionnaire Measures of Emotional and Behavioral Functioning
In
this post, I will present a study, cited below, that examined the relationship
between abstraction and perceptual integration in children’s TAT stories and
their scores on the WISC-V. The study also examined the relationship between
the capacity to tolerate and resolve negative emotions, as reflected in the
TAT, and scores on a behavioral questionnaire.
The
researchers, Orly Calderon and Rachel Kupferberg of Long Island University,
used archival data from psychological assessments of children from the general
population who had not been referred for evaluation. The assessments were
conducted in 2015–2016 by doctoral students taking a child assessment course
taught by Orly Calderon. The sample included 23 children, most of them girls,
ranging in age from 8 to 15 and attending grades 3 through 10. On average, each
participant told stories in response to four TAT cards. All participants had
cognitive abilities and emotional functioning within the expected normative range.
Intellectual
ability was assessed using the WISC-V. This test measures fluid reasoning,
working memory, learning efficiency and retrieval fluency, processing speed,
visual processing, and crystallized knowledge. It does not assess auditory
processing.
Emotional
and behavioral functioning was assessed using the BASC-3, the Behavior
Assessment System for Children, Third Edition, which includes both a
parent-report questionnaire and a self-report questionnaire. The parent-report
questionnaire assesses aggression, conduct problems, anxiety, depression,
social skills, leadership, and functional communication. The self-report questionnaire
assesses locus of control, social stress, anxiety, depression, sense of
inadequacy, self-esteem, self-reliance, and interpersonal relations.
Cognitive and emotional
functioning in the TAT was assessed using Teglasi and Kaufman’s criteria for
levels of perceptual integration, levels of abstraction, the capacity to
tolerate negative emotions, and the resolution of negative emotions. The
criteria are taken from the book cited at the end of this post.
We
studied this book several years ago in the diagnostic assessment group of the
Jerusalem Educational Psychology Service. It presents scales, without norms,
for measuring aspects of cognition, emotion, object relations, motivation, and
self-regulation in projective tests. I hope to write more about the book in the
future.
The
following are Teglasi and Kaufman’s criteria, which Calderon and Kupferberg
used to score the stories in their study.
Criteria for Cognitive Functioning
Levels of Perceptual Integration
1. Incongruent: Failure to identify, or
incorrect identification of, emotions and relationships; the ages assigned to
the characters are inconsistent with the stimulus shown in the picture; or the
descriptions of the characters and their roles in the story do not fit the
stimulus.
2. Simplistic: A focus only on the
present; emotions or actions are simplistic; the connection between the story
and the scene in the picture is vague; or the relationship between the story
and the picture is stereotyped, resembling a predetermined script.
3. Inaccurate: The narrator identifies
implicit meanings in the stimulus, but the interpretation is not accurate. This
may include an inaccurate description of time or the sequence of events, an
inaccurate account of cause and effect, or an inaccurate description of the
context.
4. Accurate: The
narrator accurately identifies implicit meanings in the stimulus. This includes
accurate identification of emotions and relationships, an accurate description
of the characters’ roles, reference to the past or future, an accurate
connection between the story and the picture, an accurate account of cause and
effect, and an accurate description of the context.
Levels of Abstraction
1. Limited: The narrator names the
objects in the picture or describes isolated or irrelevant details of the
stimulus. The story does not connect different elements of the stimulus.
Emotions are inferred directly from the stimulus, for example, “He is holding
his head, so he is sad.”
2. Concrete: The content does not
include the protagonists’ internal goals or motives. Emotions and actions are
linked to events in a simplistic manner.
3. Interpretive: The content connects the
characters’ internal characteristics with their behavior and describes
psychological processes that are differentiated from external events.
Criteria for Emotional Functioning
Capacity to Tolerate Negative
Emotion
1. Low: There is no evidence of
negative emotion when such emotion is called for by the stimulus, or the story
contains expressions of helplessness, fear, hostility, or confusion.
2. Partial: The characters experience
negative emotions, but these emotions are caused by an external source.
3. Adequate: Negative emotions are
expressed in a way that is consistent with the stimulus and the events in the
story, with a balance between internal and external sources of negative
emotion.
Resolution of Negative Emotion
1. Lack of coping: Negative emotions are not
resolved, or they are resolved in a way that is ineffective or does not promote
adaptation.
2. Immediate or partial coping: Negative emotions change
arbitrarily, the problem disappears spontaneously, the solution comes from an
external source, or the problem is resolved through fantasy or a miracle.
3. Long-term coping: The emotional change is
realistic and consistent with the events in the story. The characters
demonstrate an ability to regulate their emotions. The resolution of negative
emotions is planned and goal-directed, is connected to problem-solving, and
indicates that an obstacle has been overcome.
Before
presenting the results, I should note that, in the criteria for cognitive
functioning, the boundaries between the different scale scores are blurred.
Different psychologists could therefore easily assign different scores to the
same story on these scales. This is a general problem that I find throughout
the book.
We
now turn to the results of the study.
Children with a mean age of 10.9
tended to give concrete descriptions of the stimuli, whereas children with a
mean age of 13 tended to tell stories at the interpretive level of abstraction.
Children with a mean age of 11 demonstrated a partial capacity to tolerate
negative emotions in their stories, whereas children with a mean age of 14
demonstrated an adequate capacity to tolerate negative emotions. There were no
age differences in the children’s ability to resolve negative emotions. There
were also no age differences in the level of perceptual integration.
Significant
positive correlations were found among most of the TAT measures. For example,
correlations ranging from .41 to .81 were found between level of abstraction
and perceptual integration, the capacity to tolerate negative emotions, and the
ability to resolve negative emotions. Correlations ranging from .43 to .55 were
found between the capacity to tolerate negative emotions and both perceptual
integration and the ability to resolve negative emotions. In general, therefore, a child who functioned
at a higher level on one measure tended to function at a higher level on the
other measures as well.
No relationship was found between
levels of abstraction and perceptual integration on the TAT and scores on the
WISC-V. There were no differences in overall intellectual ability or in any of
the WISC-V index scores between children who gave concrete descriptions of the
pictures and children who told stories containing abstraction. Children who
received different perceptual-integration scores also did not differ in their
WISC-V index scores.
The
absence of a relationship between abstraction and perceptual integration on the
TAT and performance on an intelligence test may result from the very different
ways in which abstraction and integration are measured by the two types of
assessment. The TAT is an open-ended task that requires organization,
imagination, creativity, and extensive verbal expression, and it is strongly
influenced by emotional factors. The WISC-V consists of structured tasks with
clearly defined rules. It requires less organization, does not require
imagination or creativity, and involves much more limited verbal expression. It
is also less affected by emotional factors related to interpersonal dynamics
and more affected by emotional factors related to the capacity to tolerate frustration,
failure, and uncertainty.
In contrast, significant
relationships were found between scores on the TAT scales and scores on the
BASC-3 self-report questionnaire. A negative correlation was found
between the capacity to tolerate negative emotion and self-reported self-esteem
and self-reliance. Children who demonstrated a partial capacity to tolerate
negative emotion reported average levels of self-esteem and self-reliance. In
contrast, children who demonstrated an adequate capacity to tolerate negative
emotion reported lower levels of self-esteem and self-reliance.
In
addition, children who demonstrated a partial capacity to tolerate negative
emotion reported greater success in interpersonal relationships than children
who demonstrated an adequate capacity to tolerate negative emotion. There were
no differences in parent reports on any measure of behavioral or emotional
functioning between children who demonstrated an adequate capacity to tolerate
negative emotion and those who demonstrated only a partial capacity.
In
other words, lower awareness
of negative emotions may help children feel better about themselves and form
better social relationships. It is possible that a tendency to focus on
negative emotions, or a tendency to use fewer defense mechanisms to cope with
them, may adversely affect self-image and social relationships.
In
conclusion, we have reviewed criteria for measuring aspects of cognitive and
emotional functioning in the TAT. Regarding the relationship between these
measures, intelligence-test performance, and questionnaire scores, this was a
single study with a small sample and a broad age range. Additional studies are
needed before conclusions can be drawn about these relationships.
Calderon,
O., & Kupferberg, R. (2022). Stories children tell: Should the Thematic
Apperception Test be included in psychoeducational assessments? Contemporary
School Psychology, 26(3), 387–397.
Teglasi,
H., & Kaufman, A. S. (2010). Essentials of TAT and other storytelling
assessments. Wiley.
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