The effect of inquiry on the Exner Comprehensive System

Area of Science:

• Psychological assessment
• Psychopathology
• Rorschach testing

Background:

• The Rorschach Comprehensive System (CS) is widely used for psychological assessment.
• Inquiry is a critical phase in CS administration, influencing response content and interpretation.
• Previous research suggests inquiry affects specific scoring variables, but its comprehensive impact requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effect of the inquiry phase on Rorschach Comprehensive System (CS) scoring.
• To determine how the absence of inquiry influences various CS variables, including those related to thought disorder.
• To evaluate the efficacy of liberalized scoring rules in mitigating the impact of absent inquiry.

Main Methods:

• Scoring of 130 Rorschach protocols (patients and normals) under conditions with and without inquiry.
• Statistical analysis of mean differences across scoring variables between the two conditions.
• Development and application of liberalized scoring rules to assess their impact on accuracy.

Main Results:

• Absence of inquiry significantly reduced scores for Developmental Quality-vague (DQv), Form Quality-unusual (FQu), Sum of Color (SumC), Sum of Shading (Sum Shading), and weighted thought disorder (W Sum6 SP SC).
• Pure form (F) scores significantly increased without inquiry.
• The effect of absent inquiry on W Sum6 SP SC was most pronounced in schizophrenic protocols.
• Liberalized scoring rules improved the accuracy of color and shading categories but not special scores for thought disorder.

Conclusions:

• Inquiry plays a crucial role in Rorschach CS scoring, influencing a wide range of variables.
• The absence of inquiry distorts the interpretation of several CS variables, particularly thought disorder measures.
• While liberalized scoring rules can enhance the validity of some categories, they do not fully restore the accuracy of thought disorder indicators without inquiry.