HAND TEST

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HAND TEST

Edwin E. Wagner, Ph.D.

Presentation by

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"The Hand Test... may be especially useful when the diagnostic

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INTRODUCTION

OF

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INTRODUCTION

• Diagnostic Technique

• Contain pictures Of hands as a

projective medium.

• Stimulus material consist of 10

unbound cards containing simple line drawings of hands in various position.

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• Cards are presented one at a time.

• Examinee projects by telling what the

hand is doing.

• Responses are recorded verbatim • Initial response time per card and

other relevant behaviour is also noted.

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DEVELOPMENT

OF

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Development

• The development began in later

1950’s.

• Piotrowski (1957) was felt that a

projective instrument was needed by its nature was designed to mirror

attitudes and action tendencies which are close to the surface and apt to

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USES OF HAND TEST

• Hand Test measures overt behavior. • The research has shown that Hand

Test scores are related to acting out behavior among juvenile delinquents.

• Hand Test can also measure

acting-out behavior among disruptive students, adult prisoners,

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• The Hand Test can also predict

workshop performance of mentally retarded subjects, occupational

orientation in normal populations, and withdrawal from reality in brain-injured versus non-brain-brain-injured

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LIMITATIONS

Of

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Limitations

• This test cannot be used alone as it

does not provide complete and concrete diagnosis.

• The test is short as compared to other

projective techniques. It is fairly structured providing good or bad responses that may hinder its

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• The test should not be considered

complete in regard to the

multidimensional possibilities of

personality assessment as they are close to motor system therefore

fantasy life, specific defence

mechanism, intelligence can be partially discovered by hand test.

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• The Hand Test is optimally sensitive

to the examinees immediate psychological state.

• Expert examinee is required for the

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ADMINISTRATION

OF

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Administration

• Time required is 10 min including

recording of responses but not the scoring.

• Before administering we have to

establish rapport.

• Examiner and examinee should be

seated at a table facing each other .

• Stimulus cards should be lined faced

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• The examiner show the cards to the

examinee. Cards are always

presented to the examinee right side up; that is, the card number on the reverse side of the card is in the upper right-hand corner.

• An examinee may turn the card as he

wishes.

• When response to first card is

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• In the last he will be shown the blank

card(i.e. 10th_{card) and asked to}

imagine whatever come to mind.

• Responses should be copied

verbatim.

• Initial time response for each

response should be recorded.

• If the examinee cannot provide a

scorable response to a card (i.e., produces a failure) no initial

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Instances

• Instances include the following: • If the examinee gives a short,

response card, such as “It’s up,” the examiner should prompt the examinee by asking, “What is it doing?”

• If the examinee gives only one

response to the first card, the

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Recording Procedures

• Booklet is designed for the ease of

administration, recording and tabulation of responses.

• Comments, exclamations and other

remarks made are recorded but not counted as scorable responses.

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Use Of Symbols

The recording of responses can be simplified by using the following scoring symbols.

I. : Examinee turns card.

II. <, >, v, ٨ : Examinee turns card from initial position to a position with the top margin of the card to the left (<), top margin of the card to the right (>),

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• (Q): Examiner has ask a question.

• (E): Examinee illustrates the position

of the hand on the card with his or her own hand.

• (D): Examinee demonstrates with his

or her own hand in order to illustrate his or her response.

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Record Form

• Used to record responses of the

client.

• Initial response time response is also

recorded.

• Also rotations of cards are recorded in

the record form as:

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SCORING CATEGORIES

OF

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Scoring Categories

Quantitative categories • Interpersonal (INT) Affection (AFF) Dependence (DEP) Communication (COM) Exhibition (EXH) Direction (DIR) Aggression (AGG) • Environmental (ENV) Qualitative Categories Ambivalent (AMB)

Automatic Phrase (AUT) Cylindrical (CYN) Denial (DEN) Emotion (EMO) Gross (GRO) Hiding (HID) Immature (IMA)

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Scoring Categories

Quantitative categories • Maladjustive (MAL) Tension (TEN) Crippled (CRI) Fear (FEAR) • Withdrawal (WITH) Description (DFS) Bizarre (BIZ) Failure (FAIL) Qualitative Categories Oral (ORA) Perplexity (PER) Sensual (SEN) Sexual (SEX) Original (O) Repetition (RPT)

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DESCRIPTION

OF

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Quantitative Scoring

Qualitative Scoring

Additional Categories

• The additional qualitative features may be

scored provided they are interpreted with caution.

• It is recommended that these scores

not be recorded in the summary section of the booklet.

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1- Ball

• Hand is seen as bouncing, throwing or

otherwise handling a ball or a round object.

• Catching a baseball.

• Ball response is given by individuals

usually males who are interested in sports.

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• It convey three different meaning.

1- Psychosexual problem 2- Interest in sports

3- Socialized involvement in cooperative ventures.

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2- Drug

• Usually under the oral category. • Some examinee prefer to score it

separately because of implication of examinee orality that has led to drug usage rather than less dangerous oral habits such as eating, drinking.

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3- Food

• Response related to oral category.

• Sometimes used to differentiate direct,

food ingestion from other related oral activities such as smoking.

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4- Evasive(EVAS)

• It is not a common response when it

does occur it is given to psychopath and other personality types.

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5- Concreteness(CONC)

• Represent an imaginal failure.

• Examinee fall back on something in

order to come up with a response. This reaction is given by examinee with low mental ability.

• Examinee with low IQ or brain damage

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6- Feminine(FEM)or Masculine(MASC)

• This category is scored when the sex

of hand is mentioned.

• “That’s a man’s hand moving a piece

of machinery”

• Male-Female differences pertain life

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7- Homosexuality(HOMO)

• Involves activity, relationship or

description which makes reference to homosexual may be scored as

homosexuality response.

• It is a gay person talking you know

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8- Money(MON)

• Response is scored when the hand is

seen as dealing with currency.

• “Picking up a penny.”

• It is encountered with people who are

concerned with money or who lack it.

• It is found among jobless examinees

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9- Personification(PERS)

• It is scored when examinee refer to

themselves

• Personification response is given to

self centred people who are interested in their own problems and have

trouble making an objective.

• It can be found in normal people but

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10- Self(SELF)

• Responses are scored when the

activity is self-directed. Such a response denotes an interest in

oneself instead of the environment.

• Self response involves a concern with

feelings, pleasures, and activities

which derive from the self rather that other people or the impersonal

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• It also seems to occur more often in

children than. It seems logical that children might focus on their own

bodies before directing their energies outwardly.

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11- Symbolism(SYM)

• It occurs when an examinee assigns

abstract meaning to an action or description.

• “A dancer making expressive

movements to symbolize the joy of creation.”

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• Symbolism is often found in

conjunction with Inanimate responses (e.g., “The hand of Mona Lisa. It’s

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PSYCHOMETRIC

PROPERTIES

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Test Retest Reliability

• Test retest reliability of hand test has

been examined using normal and psychopathological groups.

• A study of Panek and Stoner(1979) • Group of 71 normal examinees, 56

female and 15 males.

• Two week interval was used between

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Internal Consistency

• Following study have examined the

internal consistency of the hand test.

• The first study involved 100 protocols

of individuals belonging to various groups.

• Split half reliabilities were obtained. • Comparing card 1,3,5,7&9 with the

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• The split half reliabilities were • For individuals .85,.84,&.85

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Inter scorer Reliability

• Study of normal female examinees by

(Maloney &Wagner (1979))

• Two judges were involved in the study. • One was well trained graduate student. • Other was author of test.

• Spearman correlation was computed

which ranged from 0.71 to 1.00 (perfect agreement).

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VALIDITY OF HAND

TEST

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Criterion Validity

• The ability of hand test responses to

differentiate between normals and schizophrenics by (Wagner,1961).

• Groups of male schizophrenics and

50 normal male college students were selected.

• Correlation was composed for four

hand test variables

• Interpersonal=.56 • Active=.40

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Predictive Validity

• Study by Darrbney and Wagner(1980)

investigated the relationship of the hand test and predicted success in medical colleges.

• 23 students participated, 13 males

and 10 females.

• Students were given hand test and

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• Results showed that scores of

maladjustment correlated negatively with all measures of intellect and

performance.

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Concurrent Validity

• A number of studies have examined

the relationship of hand test

performance to various behaviours and performance.

• Panek, Wagner, Barrett and

Alexander(1978) studied the

relationship of hand test performance with the automatic accidents.

• 170 females were taken. • Divided into two groups

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• Correlation between younger driver

and initial response time and number of accidents .27 and older is .41.

• Results indicate that hand test might

be useful for Identifying individuals with personality disposition towards accidents.

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Quantitative

Interpretation

Interpersonal Responses

• Interpersonal responses involve

relation with other people.

• Lack of interpersonal responses

indicate an individual whose life lack interpersonal roles.

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Variety of possible interpersonal responses 1. Affection 2. Dependence 3. Communication 4. Exhibition 5. Direction

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I. Affection

• Affectionate person participates in pleasurable relationships which

involve mutual interchange of positive feelings and attitudes.

• They give and receive affection and generally impress others as being reasonable and friendly.

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II. Dependence

• Dependent people are those who need others.

• These persons are willing to

subordinate themselves in order to receive care and protection.

• Dependence responses are

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III. Communication

• Communication responses are given by examinees who engage in

reciprocal information exchanges as a way of displaying interpersonal

roles.

• These type of responses can be

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IV. Exhibition

• In exhibition responses the individual desires pleasure from receiving the attention of others.

• The need for praise and being the center of attention is a major part of an exhibition responses.

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V. Direction

• These people manipulate others into fulfilling their needs but neither

dislike those people being manipulated.

• Individuals who are not directive are not suitable for social success.

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VI. Aggression

• Aggressive people are often social, seek to hurt others, and are

ineffective in real goals.

• Limited no of aggressive responses especially mixed with positive

interpersonal responses, may be expected in normal individuals.

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Environmental Responses

• Environmental responses are assumed

to represent generalized attitudes to impersonal world.

• Environmental responses are broken

down into three more specific quantitative scoring categories. 1. Acquisition responses

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I. Acquisition Responses

• Individuals who produce many

acquisition responses tend to set their sights high and pursue even greater accomplishment than they have already achieved.

• Athletes, sales personnel, and scientists may all produce

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II. Active Responses

• Active responses are generally given by examinees who are involved in

constructive accomplishment.

• Home-worker, laborer and expert

burglar may all give Active responses even though the purpose toward

which they direct their efforts differs greatly.

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III. Passive Responses

• A passive response means that at least some of the time an individual will desire allowing psychological or physical passivity.

• The greater the number of passive responses, the more the examinee gravitates toward situations which

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Maladjustive Responses

• Maladjustive responses arise from a

failure to meet goals.

• Normal individuals who are suffering

from tension and feelings of

inadequacy can produce a small

number of Maladjustive responses.

• Maladjustive responses are divided

into three subcategories: i. Tension

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I. Tension Responses

• Tension responses may be given by normal individuals who suppress or waste action tendencies.

• Examples include:

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II. Crippled Responses

• In crippled responses the examinee projects his or her psychological

insufficiencies and inadequacies by physical deforming the hand.

• Crippled responses may indicate many types of inferiority (e.g.

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III. Fear Responses

• Phobic experience and individual’s own internalized hostility can

produce fear response.

• Responses of this type reflect

genuine apprehension about threat to ego integrity.

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Withdrawal Responses

• Withdrawal responses reflect an

rejection of meaningful, effective life rules.

• Withdrawal responses are not given by

the normative groups so withdrawal responses should be considered

pathological.

• Withdrawal category is subdivided into

three more categories. i. Description

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I. Description

• This type of response is most typical of deteriorated schizophrenics,

although neurotic, mentally retarded and a rare normal examinee also

produce description responses.

• Elaborated description responses reflect unique emotional states, where as simple description

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II. Bizarre Responses

• Bizarre responses are the most

serious of all withdrawal responses.

• The examinee partially or completely ignores the hand stimuli and projects his or her illogical perceptions onto the hand.

• Bizarre responses mostly appear in schizophrenics who are displaying psychotic symptomatology (e.g.,

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III. Failure Responses

• Failure responses represent the

inability of the examinee to attend or respond to hand stimuli.

• Failure have serious implications and should not be taken lightly.

• Deterioration, especially organic deterioration is indicated when

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Qualitative Interpretation

• The quantitative scores are

concerned with methods of relating to the interpersonal and impersonal environment, whereas the qualitative scores focus more on personal

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1. Ambivalent

• Ambivalent shows hesitancy in the expression of the behavior with

which it is associated.

• The implication is that such action tendencies are only partially

successful in the past and examinee is hesitant about expressing them.

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2. Automatic Phrase

• It is rare

• It represents a feeble, stereotyped

attempt to induce familiarity and structure into which it is a difficult, disturbing task for the examinee.

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3. Cylindrical

• It has been found among chronic

male masturbators, male

homosexuals and females with

sexual identity problems but is not pathognomonic of any one

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4. Denial

• Denial has a similar interpretation as

Ambivalent.

• Here a defensive reaction formation

can be assumed since the action tendency is explicitly denied.

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5. Emotion

• It does not necessarily to imply

genuine and deep emotion.

• It tends to occur more with

individuals who possess only apparent affect.

• For example:

• “That’s the way I carried my

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6. Gross

• Gross is never a good sign since it

denotes egocentricity and a disregard for the right of others.

• It occurs most often with individuals

with psychopathology and aggressive character disorder.

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7. Hiding

• Hiding shows a tendency to

misrepresent and conceal one’s true intentions.

• People who give hiding responses

deliberately attempt to prevent the exposure to certain psychological traits, usually for the purpose of fooling or manipulating others.

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8. Immature

• Immature response is common among

children and becomes less frequent as age increase.

• It is interpreted in a straight forward

manner as indicating some degree of immaturity in interpersonal

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9. Impotent

• It is rare.

• It is representative of cognitive

problems and may be associated with low intelligence.

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10.Inanimate

• It represents ruminative tendencies

which tend to remain imaginal and do not find ready release in behavior.

• It suggests highly subjective

thoughts.

• It is associated with intelligence

although the mental abilities may not be practically applied.

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11.Movement

• Movement represents a working off of

excess energy and is often associated with purposeless, even antisocial

behavior.

• The movement response was first

noted in random such as escape from the institution and easily provoked

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12.Oral

• Oral response is indicative of an

oral-dependent orientation.

• It is more common among children,

substance abusers and passive

dependent personalities than among normals.

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13.Perplexity

• Perplexity can occur with impotent

with same interpretive significance (i.e., cognitive difficulty).

• Care should be taken to make sure

that the perplexity response is a genuine expression of confusion.

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14.Sensual

• Sensual implies that the examinee

enjoys and seeks out experiences which stimulate the senses. It tends to be given by more intelligent

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15.Sexual

• Sexual response is more reliable of

qualitative categories.

• This type of responses occurs in

individuals who are preoccupied with sex.

• When it is scored, the interpreter

should look for other signs of psychopathology also.

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16.Original

• Original responses indicate

originality, creativity and intelligence.

• This type of score is rare and should

only be scored by an experienced clinician.

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17.Repetition

• Repetition denotes a lack of flexibility

in dealing with life’s challenges.

• Repetitions are often associated with

limited intelligence or organic brain damage.

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References:-

Wagner,E.E.”The Hand Test Manual”, 1983,Los Angeles:California,western psychological services.

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