Needs that can't be named might still show up in a story
The paper opens in psychoanalytic terms. Personality is an interaction of forces; each force is a need driving a person toward some kind of object. A repressed need may surface as a fantasy the person can report, or be inferred by the analyst. The pictures were a way to make such fantasies on demand.
Murray reasoned that people telling a story about someone else would not notice how much they gave away about themselves.
Series A, B, C, then D: the deck that stuck
Through the 1930s Morgan and Murray chose pictures from illustrated magazines and reworked them over three trial series. Series D became the 1943 published set. The pictures themselves are still under copyright and are not shown here.
Why did the first author disappear?
Tell the four parts, then score your own sentences
The manual asks for what led up to the scene, what is happening, what the characters feel and think, and how it ends. Murray then coded each sentence for which of 28 needs or 20 presses it showed, rated 1–5. Here you do the coding yourself with six needs and two presses, which shows why scorers so often disagreed.
Rich stories, weak diagnosis
Clinics, motive research and fiction
Sources cited on this page
- [1]Morgan, C. D., & Murray, H. A. (1935). A method for investigating fantasies: The Thematic Apperception Test. Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry, 34(2), 289–306.JAMA NetworkUsed for: Header, author order, date, opening premise.
- [2]Murray, H. A. (1943). Thematic Apperception Test Manual. Harvard University Press.via Wikipedia summaryUsed for: Four-part instruction, 20-card recommendation, 28 needs / 20 presses scored 1–5, blank card.
- [3]Morgan, W. G. (2002). Origin and history of the earliest Thematic Apperception Test pictures. Journal of Personality Assessment, 79(3), 422–445.doiUsed for: Roberts anecdote, magazine sources, Series A–D.
- [4]Springer Encyclopedia of Child Behavior and Development: Thematic Apperception Test.link.springer.comUsed for: 31 pictures; 11 MF, 7 GF, 7 BM.
- [5]Wikipedia. Thematic Apperception Test (citing Anderson 1999; Wildman & Wildman 1975; Lilienfeld et al. 2000; Gruber & Kreuzpointner 2013; Jacobs & McClelland 1994).en.wikipedia.orgUsed for: Authorship account A, Moby-Dick link, uses, validity figures, debates, fiction.
- [6]Lilienfeld, S. O., Wood, J. M., & Garb, H. N. (2000). The scientific status of projective techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 1(2), 27–66.doiUsed for: Standardisation and immunizing-tactics critique.
- [7]Weber, M. (2008). Christiana Morgan (1897–1967). In Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought; online encyclopedia entry.whiteheadresearch.orgUsed for: “Morgan-Murray TAT” until 1943; senior authorship later erased; 1923 meeting.
- [8]Springer Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences: Murray, Henry A. (annotated references, quoting Douglas 1993).link.springer.comUsed for: Authorship account B.
- [9]Jacobs, R. L., & McClelland, D. C. (1994). Moving up the corporate ladder. Consulting Psychology Journal, 46(1), 32–41.doiUsed for: Leadership study.
- [10]Gruber, N., & Kreuzpointner, L. (2013). Measuring the reliability of picture story exercises like the TAT. PLoS ONE, 8(11), e79450.doiUsed for: Category-based alpha up to .84.
What changed in this revision
The 1935 article is behind a paywall; only its header and opening abstract were read. The 1943 manual and Morgan (2002) are cited through secondary summaries. No TAT pictures are reproduced.
- CORRECTEDAuthorship: the 1935 paper lists Christiana Morgan first. The page now gives both accounts of why her name was dropped.
- REMOVED“Foundation of McClelland's needs theory” as a headline claim. McClelland's motive scoring used picture stories, but the needs framework is Murray's (1938).
- CORRECTEDThe keyword “theme meter” is replaced by self-coding with Murray's need and press labels. Automatic word counts implied a scoring the TAT never had.
- ADDED1935 header, premise, Series A–D, deck composition with the 31/32 discrepancy, authorship accounts, Wildman 1975 accuracy, reliability debates, afterlives and 10 references.
- KEPTWritten scenes in place of copyrighted cards, and the note that this is history, not a self-test.
Related historical tests
Rorschach's blots ask what a shape looks like; the TAT asks what is happening to people. Both were adopted widely after WWII, and both drew the same 2000 critique of projective techniques.
In Wildman and Wildman's 1975 study, MMPI data let clinicians classify cases correctly 88% of the time against the TAT's 57%. The MMPI appeared the same year as the TAT manual.
Pressey tried to reach emotional life through crossing out words. The TAT reached for it through stories. Both stood outside ability testing at a time when ability tests dominated.
Strong measured what people wanted by comparing their likes with those of working groups. Murray tried to infer wants from fantasy. They are two opposite routes to motivation in the same decade.
Murray and Morgan worked under Jung's influence in the late 1920s. The MBTI, a year after the TAT manual, built a questionnaire from Jung's types instead of from fantasy.
Doll's 1935 scale recorded what a person actually does day to day, through an informant. The TAT, published the same year, went for what a person imagines.