Ethical Issues In Rorschach Testing

Debate rose in the psychological community in 2009 when the original Rorschach plates and research results on interpretation were published in the Rorschach test article on Wikipedia. Hogrefe & Huber Publishing, called the publication “unbelievably reckless and even cynical of Wikipedia” and said it was investigating the possibility of legal action. Psychologists have sometimes declined to reveal tests and test data to courts when asked to do so by the parties citing ethical reasons; it is argued that such refusal may delay full understanding of the process by the attorneys, and delay cross examination of the experts. APA ethical standard 1.23(b) states that the psychologist has a responsibility to document processes in detail and of acceptable value to allow reasonable inquiry by the court. Test takers differ significantly in terms of their experiences and backgrounds. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that 16% of the U.S population was Hispanic in 2010 and that percentage is growing rapidly. Other minority groups, especially those from Asia are also growing. This advance call for test takers and test developers to attend to the demographic features of the people for whom the test was developed.

Studies conducted on the Rorschach test provides a good example of this. It appears to be the most popular method in the United States, because it reports many criticisms of doubters. Several studies indicate that scores for fairly normal community samples of Mexicans, Central Americans, and South Americans often differ tremendously from the norms of the Exner’s system for scoring this test. These results increase the question of whether the test can be used ethically with Hispanic adults and children in the United