The Other-Directed Adolescent: Associated Personality Processes as Measured by the Rorschach

Other-Directedness examines the extent to which a person sees his or her contemporaries as a source or guide for how to behave in a given situation. It has been linked with both adjustment difficulties and difficulties in interpersonal functioning. The purpose of this study was to examine underlying personality processes using the Rorschach in the late adolescent, college population and the hypotheses were three-fold. It was hypothesized that highly Other-Directed adolescents would have fewer psychological resources for coping with stress as indicated by a low Adjusted D score. It was hypothesized that highly Other-Directed adolescents would have less effective attitudes concerning interpersonal behaviors, as evidenced by more Poor Human Responses than Good Human Responses. It was hypothesized that highly Other-Directed adolescents would display greater dependency needs for closeness and approval through greater total Texture responses.

Self-report and Rorschach data was collected from 77 undergraduate men and woman. The data was analyzed nonparametrically given the non-normal distribution of the Rorschach scores. Results did not support any of the hypotheses. Discussion is given to methodological issues, such as limited variance or appropriateness of certain Rorschach variables in a non-patient sample. Further discussion is given to conceptual issues and alternative models.