Some object relations aspects of the Rorschach and their relation to positive and negative emotionality as measured by the multidimensional personality questionnaire

The primary purpose of this study was to explore the degree of correspondance between a Rorschach scale of motivational valuation and the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (Tellegen, 1982) in an effort to identify similar personality structure using dissimilar measures. The area of investigation was affect tone of interpersonal expectations. Rorschach responses were separated into those which contained mention of human movement and emotion (labeled Explicit), and those which did not (labeled Implicit) . They were then scored for benevolent and malevolent content as two separate dimensions rather than a bipolar continuum. Correlations were computed among the Rorschach variables, and Benevolence and Malevolence were correlated with the orthogonal factors of Positive and Negative Emotionality on the MPQ. Results show that Rorschach measures of Benevolence are positively correlated with Positive Emotionality, supporting the notion that two dissimilar measures of personality structure can sample a similar domain. Malevolence did not correlate with Negative Emotionality. This study does not support the categorization of affect tone on the Rorschach as a bipolar construct, and raises questions about the interpretation of Explicit and Implicit responses as a measure of interpersonal expectations.