[Hand test as an instrument for the prediction of aggressive behavior]

The hand test it's a personality projective test. It uses ten plates, nine of which represent a hand in different positions: the plates are shown one by one, successively, and the subject is asked to express his interpretation on the activity of the hand shown there. Confronted with the tenth plate, which is white, the subject, instead, must imagine a hand and tell what it is doing; The answers are recorded together with the time of reaction and any other meaningful behaviour, then the score is computed and the interpretation is made, according to the prescribed procedures. Among the different aims pursued by this test, the first one to be reached was the forecase of aggressive behaviour. The quantitative evaluation of the probability that the subject considered could, in the future, act aggressively, is provided by the acting out score. The principle, on which is based the determination of this score, is that the probability of an exterior aggressive behaviour increases in the same way as the dominant and aggressive attitudes prevail on the attitudes for social cooperation. Grouping, then, the answers which show tendencies of the two kinds and calculating the algebraical difference between the two groups, the acting out score is obtained. Generally speaking, the studies performed have confirmed the forecasting capacity of the test. The score in question has, in fact, differentiated with remarkable approximation (up to 78%) aggressive subjects from not=aggressive ones, recidivous from not recidivous, robbers from alcoholics, etc. These results have even a bigger relief when one considers that the acting out score cannot be interpreted like a mechanical and perfect index: it has to be integrated by qualitative considerations concerning the individual under examination, his environment and the answers given.