Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1986

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Psychology

Major Professor

Alvin G. Burstein

Committee Members

Howard Pollio, Michael Johnson, Michael McDonald

Abstract

This study examined patterns of similarity and difference in the manifest content of three types of projective fantasy productions: Early Memories, Dreams, and Van Lennep's Four Picture Test, a picture-story test in the TAT tradition. Data were collected from twenty-six volunteers from the College Scholars Program at the University of Tennessee, a flexibly structure alternative undergraduate program for academically capable individuals. Re view of extant scoring systems indicated the need for a more extensive, detailed approach. The instrument developed employs a series of continuous dimensions reflecting the variability of subjects' representation of three do mains: Surroundings, Others, and Self.

Examination of correlational and other hypothesis testing procedures suggested that dreams and early memories yielded patterns of greater similarity to one another, along the dimensions measured by these scales, than either did to the Van Lennep Four Picture Test protocols. Though dreams presented a generally more primitive picture of the representational world than early memories, pro files of mean scores on the dimensions paralleled one another more than either paralleled the Van Lennep Test. Patterns of similarity and difference of scores comprising domains were similar between dreams and early memories but divergent between these fantasy productions and the Van Lennep Stories. Also, the new scale exhibited substantial efficacy in delineating differences among the domains measured and among the eleven subscale dimensions measured. This suggests the potential fruitfulness of broadening the study of "object" representation—i.e., the representation of others—to include the study of representation of self and of inanimate features of the surroundings as well.

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