What's Your IQIQ Tests, Training, Puzzles & Research
ENEnglish TRTürkçe ESEspañol DEDeutsch RUРусский ZH中文 ARالعربية HIहिन्दी IDBahasa Indonesia
Take the IQ test
Take the test
More tests
Personality10Big Five, MBTI, DISCPsychology8Mood, stress, attachmentCareer fit12Strengths to job familiesReasoning9Logical, numerical, spatialProgramming15Python, JavaScript, SQLLanguage11Vocabulary and grammarAcademic20Math, science, humanitiesGeneral knowledgeTrivia across topics
All 50+ tests →
Sample item · logical reasoning261220?What comes next? Try a real question first.Try sample questions →
N-back · Stroop · Mental rotationTrain your weakest domain in 5 minutes a day.Browse games →
What does my IQ mean?
70808590100110115120130140150160
IQ percentile chart →Score converters
59 names · labelled by sourceFamous IQ scores — and how far to trust each one.Explore famous IQs →
Tests
Training
Questions
Research
Blog
About
ENTRESDERUZHARHIID
Home/Historical IQ Tests/Rorschach 1921
1921 · Herisau · BernHistory, not a self-test

Rorschach: ten plates, one book, and an author dead within a year.

At the Herisau asylum, psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach, nicknamed “Klecks” (inkblot), showed symmetrical blots to hundreds of patients and controls. He cared less about what people saw than how they saw it. Psychodiagnostik appeared in 1921; he died of peritonitis in April 1922, aged 37. Everything after that, five rival scoring systems and a century of argument, happened without him.

The ten plates →Who scored it, and how
Psychodiagnostik
Methodik und Ergebnisse eines wahrnehmungsdiagnostischen Experiments (Deutenlassen von Zufallsformen)
DR. HERMANN RORSCHACH
BERN · BIRCHER · 1921 · 174 PP. · 10 PLATES
Title and subtitle as cited in the literature; layout re-set.
FROM A CHILDHOOD GAME TO TEN PRINTED PLATES

Klecksography, a rival's eight cards, his own trial boards, then the book

KlecksKlecksographyAs a boy he played the folded-inkblot game and invented stories for the shapes; his father taught painting.
1917Szymon Hens's 8 cardsHens's 1917 study used eight uncoloured inkblots with children, adults and psychotic patients, and looked at what people saw. It influenced Rorschach most in this period.
15Trial boards, 1918Built on axis and symmetry: some black and white, some black and red, some coloured.Another account says he tried “forty or more” blots between 1917 and 1920.
2 yrsFinding a publisherHis letters show the publishing process took about two years.
10Printed plates, 1921The monograph, 174 pages, with ten plates.
THE DECK

Ten plates, three kinds

Five plates are black and grey, two add red, and three are in several colours. Rorschach's trial boards already mixed black-and-white, black-and-red and coloured blots, all built on an axis of symmetry. The 1921 images are generally treated as public domain; drop each one into its slot.

IBlack & grey
IIWith red
IIIWith red
IVBlack & grey
VBlack & grey
VIBlack & grey
VIIBlack & grey
VIIIMulticolour
IXMulticolour
XMulticolour
WHO HE TESTED

Mostly patients, some “normals,” and two ways to count them

At Herisau and elsewhere he tested patients, nurses, medical students, children and others, and noticed that schizophrenic patients' responses resembled one another. Sources give two sets of figures. Choose one.

288117
Patients“Normal” subjects
405 peopleNurses, medical students, children and other “normals” made up the 117; schizophrenic patients' answers stood out as alike. Source [4].
NOT WHAT, BUT HOW

A response is coded on several dimensions at once

Beyond content, the examiner records how the answer was organised and how well it fits the blot. Pick a dimension.

LocationWhich part of the blot the response uses: the whole card, a large detail or a small one.The examiner asks: “Where on the card did you see it?”

Simplified, system-neutral descriptions; each scoring system defines these codes differently.

A CENTURY OF SCORING

One author's sketch, five schools, then one merged system

With Rorschach dead, his scoring was never finished. Click a stage.

John Exner combines the strongest elements of the five into one standardized method, with a fixed procedure and a large normative sample. By then dozens of books and more than 5,000 articles exist on the test.Sources [3][6][7]
HERMANN RORSCHACH · 1884–1922

A painter's son, Bleuler's student, a provincial asylum doctor

1884Born 8 November in Zürich; nicknamed “Klecks” at school.
1909–12Qualifies in medicine (1909) and takes his Zürich doctorate (1912) with a dissertation on hallucinations, supervised by Eugen Bleuler.
1913Marries Olga Stempelin; spends less than a year working in Russia.
1915Joins the cantonal asylum at Herisau, where Hans Behn-Eschenburg assists him; Behn later made a parallel inkblot series.
1919Vice-president of the newly founded Swiss Psychoanalytic Society, under Emil Oberholzer.
1921Psychodiagnostik published.
1922Dies at Herisau of peritonitis after appendicitis, aged 37. Bleuler called him the hope of a whole generation of Swiss psychiatry.
DateMost sources give 2 April 1922; one encyclopedia gives 3 April.
Why there is nothing to score hereThe Rorschach is given and scored by trained clinicians under a specific system, and its interpretation is contested. Looking at the plates online tells you nothing about yourself, and many clinicians prefer that people who may be assessed have not studied them.
REFERENCES

Sources cited on this page

  1. [1]Rorschach, H. (1921). Psychodiagnostik: Methodik und Ergebnisse eines wahrnehmungsdiagnostischen Experiments (Deutenlassen von Zufallsformen). Bern: Bircher.cited in Springer (2018)Used for: Title, subtitle, publisher.
  2. [2]Wikipedia. Psychodiagnostik.en.wikipedia.orgUsed for: 174 pages; two-year publishing; 1932 Morgenthaler edition; 1942 English.
  3. [3]Simply Psychology. Rorschach Inkblot Test.simplypsychology.orgUsed for: Klecksography, father, “how not what,” 40+ blots, five systems, Exner, R-PAS.
  4. [4]Hermann Rorschach: From klecksography to psychiatry (2020). PMC7077865.ncbi.nlm.nih.govUsed for: Hens 1917, 15 boards, 288 + 117 sample, Behn-Eschenburg.
  5. [5]New World Encyclopedia. Hermann Rorschach.newworldencyclopedia.orgUsed for: 300 + 100 sample, Bleuler quote, death and dates, 1919 society.
  6. [6]Exner, J. E., & Clark, B. The Rorschach. In Clinical Diagnosis of Mental Disorders. Springer.link.springer.comUsed for: Five major systems; over 5,000 articles; 1942 translation.
  7. [7]Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences (Springer): Rorschach.link.springer.comUsed for: Exner Comprehensive System, 1974.
  8. [8]Wikipedia. Hermann Rorschach.en.wikipedia.orgUsed for: Birth, marriage, 2001 Scientific American critique.
  9. [9]International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences: Rorschach, Hermann (via Encyclopedia.com).encyclopedia.comUsed for: Education, Russia, Herisau post, Oberholzer, 3 April date.
EDITORIAL RECORD

What changed in this revision

Psychodiagnostik was not read; details come from biographies and reference works, several of which disagree.

  • REMOVED“The most famous psychological test” and the culture section's unsourced claims.
  • ADDEDPsychodiagnostik hero, the origin funnel (Klecks → Hens → trial boards → 10 plates), sample figures with both versions, a scoring stage strip 1921–2011, Rorschach's life, a care note, and 9 references.
  • FLAGGEDConflicts shown in place: 15 boards vs 40+ blots; 288 + 117 vs 300 + 100 subjects; death on 2 vs 3 April 1922.
  • CORRECTEDScoring dimensions now include form quality and present popularity as coded after the fact, not asked of the taker.
  • KEPTThe ten image slots for public-domain plates and the colour filter.
KEEP EXPLORING

Related historical tests

The other great projective1935
Thematic Apperception Test

Morgan and Murray's pictures showed people in situations, where Rorschach's blots showed nothing in particular. The two became the twin pillars of postwar projective assessment, and shared its critics.

Read the page →
Same year, opposite method1921
Pressey X-O Test

Pressey also tried to reach emotional life in 1921, but with a crossing-out sheet scored by count. Rorschach's free responses needed an expert to code.

Read the page →
Perception as evidence1938
Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt

Bender, like Rorschach, treated how a person handles a visual form as diagnostic. Its projective uses drew the same validity objections.

Read the page →
The empirical rival1943
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

The MMPI scored personality from true/false answers against criterion groups. It became the standard the Rorschach was measured against.

Read the page →
Pictures without words1923
Kohs Block-Design

Kohs's blocks also used abstract visual material, to reason rather than to project. The contrast shows two uses of non-verbal stimuli in the same decade.

Read the page →
Ability vs personality1916
Stanford-Binet (1916)

By 1921 Binet-type ability scales were spreading fast. Rorschach's book marked the start of a separate branch of testing that aimed at personality and psychopathology.

Read the page →
Part of the Historical IQ Tests Archive. Editorial content under CC BY-SA 4.0.
BibTeXRIS

Inkblots ask how you see. We ask how you reason.

Our modern IQ test reports on contemporary norms (mean 100, SD 15) with a four-domain breakdown, in about 30 minutes.

Take the modern IQ test →