Draw-A-Person Test as a Measure of Anxiety in the Work Place

Abstract

It was hypothesized that, given their stressful working conditions, nuclear weapons workers would show more anxiety indicators on the Draw-A-Person test. Three groups (ns = 9) were given the test and their drawings were scored with Handler's 1967 objectively scorable indexes. A posttest-only design with two nonequivalent comparison groups was employed. Nuclear weapons workers had a reliably higher number of anxiety indicators on their Draw-A-Person drawings than the two comparison groups. These preliminary results indicate that Handler's objectively scorable indexes may be of value in detecting anxiety in the work place. The conclusions are tempered by the small groups and the quasi-experimental design used but indicate that further research could be fruitful.