Construct Validation of Imaginative Assessment of Family Orientation and Status Perception: Theoretical and Methodological Implications for the Thematic Apperception Test

Abstract

In two different investigations constructs of family orientation (including marital perception) and status perception were exposed to construct validation procedures involving a sample of 1,428 respondents randomly selected from two larger representative national samples of American adult men and women utilized in a 1957 study and in a replication of that study in 1976. Data were based upon a thematic apperceptive procedure in which projective stories were coded for perceptions of family and marital relations, interpersonal conflict, and status differences. With selected variables from the coding and from the questionnaire, these concepts were validated according to two independent procedures. Support for face validity was obtained only with demographic variables, and in construct validity the strongest relationships were observed with variables from the projective measure rather than from the questionnaire. Theoretical issues pertaining to the meaning of the Thematic Apperception Test and to the advantages and disadvantages of different methodological approaches to validity are discussed. Particular attention is given to the influence of picture stimuli in the interpretation of results.