The relationship between Rorschach measures of social appropriateness and object relations

This research examined the relationship between Rorschach measures of Social Appropriateness (form quality) and Object Relations. It was predicted that subjects high and low in Social Appropriateness would show significant differences on measures of object relational functioning. When differences between high and low subjects were increased using the method of polarities, three object relational measures differentiated the two groups. Subjects better in Social Appropriateness had proportionally fewer human responses (the opposite of what was predicted), had proportionally more articulated human responses, and had proportionally more malevolent human responses, than did subjects with poorer Social Appropriateness. A measure of psychopathological symptoms, the Cornell Index, failed to aid in the discrimination of the two groups. The finding that subjects with higher Social Appropriateness had fewer human responses suggests that the expression of human content may be inherently conflictual. A second possible explanation is that subjects who focus on human content may have greater anxiety concerning interpersonal issues. A third possibility is that this may, in part, represent an adaptive style characteristic of the sample, who were high-achieving college students.