We spilled ink on Rorschach ☁︎

Can random swirls of pigment reveal the inner workings of your mind? Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach is renowned for thinking so. His inky obsession began long before his namesake test became a ubiquitous part of mid-century psychological analysis: As a child, young Rorschach was so enamored with Klecksography, a game of making pictures from inkblots, that his friends [nicknamed him]( “Klecks.” Fast-forward to 1917, when Rorschach, fresh from getting his M.D. at the University of Zurich, [discovered]( the work of Szyman Hens, another Swiss shrink who studied psyches via inkblots. Believing blots had the power to diagnose schizophrenia, Rorschach developed a series of symmetrical images that have remained in use more than 100 years later. The reason behind his specific designs has been lost to history, but the lack of rationale hasn’t decreased their impact over the years. The Rorschach test’s popularity as an actual diagnostic tool waxes and wanes, but as a pop culture reference it endures—these days, the term is shorthand for anything a subject assigns a subjective meaning to. (Hillary Clinton has famously [referred to herself]( as a Rorschach test.) Time to turn the tables on Rorschach—let’s start analyzing. 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Brought to you by [Quartz Obsession] The Rorschach test May 18, 2018 This is only a test --------------------------------------------------------------- Can random swirls of pigment reveal the inner workings of your mind? Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach is renowned for thinking so. His inky obsession began long before his namesake test became a ubiquitous part of mid-century psychological analysis: As a child, young Rorschach was so enamored with Klecksography, a game of making pictures from inkblots, that his friends [nicknamed him]( “Klecks.” Fast-forward to 1917, when Rorschach, fresh from getting his M.D. at the University of Zurich, [discovered]( the work of Szyman Hens, another Swiss shrink who studied psyches via inkblots. Believing blots had the power to diagnose schizophrenia, Rorschach developed a series of symmetrical images that have remained in use more than 100 years later. The reason behind his specific designs has been lost to history, but the lack of rationale hasn’t decreased their impact over the years. The Rorschach test’s popularity as an actual diagnostic tool waxes and wanes, but as a pop culture reference it endures—these days, the term is shorthand for anything a subject assigns a subjective meaning to. (Hillary Clinton has famously [referred to herself]( as a Rorschach test.) Time to turn the tables on Rorschach—let’s start analyzing. 🌐 [View this email on the web]( By the digits [10:]( Original inkblot cards designed by Rorschach [400:]( Patients Rorschach studied before publishing his new system in a book called Psychodiagnostics [52:]( Percent of the International Rorschach Society that is Japanese [92:]( Years it took for Rorschach’s inkblots to become public—when a Saskatchewan doctor posted them on Wikipedia in 2009, many psychologists were outraged [1:]( Articles that refer to Hermann Rorschach’s “smoldering Brad Pitt looks” 👇 (Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons) 🐦 [Tweet this]( Quotable “If you look upon an old wall covered with dirt, or the odd appearance of some streaked stones, you may discover several things like landscapes, battles, clouds, uncommon attitudes, humorous faces, draperies, etc. Out of this confused mass of objects, the mind will be furnished with an abundance of designs and subjects perfectly new.” — [Leonardo da Vinci]( Brought to you by HBO The distinctions between host and human are becoming increasingly blurred in Westworld—and online. --------------------------------------------------------------- A new AI bot developed by Delos is here to discuss your Westworld experience and thoughts about the park.[Tap to chat]( Orlando/Three Lions/Getty Images million-dollar question How does it work — and does it work? --------------------------------------------------------------- According to [The Cut,]( Rorschach had a meticulous scoring method that sorted his subjects’ answers into three categories: Form, Movement, and Color. Most people tend to first identify Form, describing what the shapes of the images portray. Rorschach believed this tendency showed a strong ability to reason. Conversely, he theorized that people who got hung up on specific colors of the card were more emotional and less rational. A patient displaying signs of schizophrenia would tend to give Color answers for most cards, or even refuse to answer at all. But was Rorschach right? The answer to that seems to be as ambiguous as the blots themselves. Though the test was heralded as one of the top ways to diagnose personality disorders for decades, it fell out of favor in the 1980s. A study published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest found that Rorschach tests were [completely worthless]( when it came to scoring reliability, measuring what it claimed to measure, and accurately predicting behavior. “If psychologists used tea leaves instead of the Rorschach, we’d probably be better off, because then, at least, no one else would take the results seriously,” study co-author James Wood, associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas at El Paso, told the [Washington Post.]( But according to a [2013 study]( the Rorschach test may have more of a place in modern psychology than we thought: The American Psychological Association [found]( it to be helpful and accurate in diagnosing mental illness, when administered correctly. Perhaps the question of whether the Rorschach test works is a Rorschach test in itself? 🤔 origin story On the blot --------------------------------------------------------------- Rorschach may have made the ambiguous test famous, but he wasn’t the first to assign meaning to blots. That honor goes to German doctor Justinus Kerner, who began making accidental blobs and smudges on letters to friends as his eyesight began to fail in his old age. Rather than repenning his correspondence, Kerner turned the amorphous accidents into devilish doodles, deliberately folding the paper to create winged wonders and diabolical demons he dubbed “creatures of chance.” He eventually added verses of poetry to each creation, [publishing a book called]( in 1857. Watch this! Monsters, Ink --------------------------------------------------------------- Like Justinus Kerner, artist Stefan Bucher makes fantastical beasts from blobs of ink—and you can too, thanks to this step-by-step tutorial. Giphy Elective projectives Other ways psychologists get in your head --------------------------------------------------------------- Rorschach isn’t the only projective test in town. Here are a few others that have ebbed and flowed in popularity over the years: Holtzman inkblot: Similar to the Rorschach, but with a pool of 45 images and objective scoring criteria. It also limits subjects to one response per image. Thematic apperception test: Also known as the picture interpretation technique, this test asks subjects to tell a story based on ambiguous scenes of people. Picture arrangement test: Subjects must arrange 25 sets of three pictures into an order that “makes sense,” and write a sentence about what is taking place. Word association test: A technique developed by Carl Jung in which subjects give their first responses to a word. These responses may be used to infer personality traits. Graphology: The analysis of handwriting, including the pressure of upward and downward strokes and the smoothness of writing, to determine aspects of personality. Giphy Pop quiz A Victorian game in which players created rhymes to go with inkblots was called what? JabberwocksGobolinksHumbugsCodswallops Correct. The definition of “Gobolink”: “Veritable goblin of the ink-bottle” Incorrect. If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. Fun fact! In addition to being a prolific author, Victor Hugo was an accomplished inkblot artist—but ink wasn’t his only medium. He also used coffee, and, it’s rumored, [his own blood](. take me down this 🐰 hole![obs rorshcach cheese curl] If you find yourself intrigued by projective analysis but feel that Rorschach is a bit outdated, fix your gaze on a different type of blob: Cheetos. [CheeseCurlsofInstagram]( posts photos of “Cheetos that I have found to resemble something.” Giphy Poll Rorschach: Glorified party game or legit psychoanalysis tool? [Click here to vote]( Almost as good as beer pong2 legit 2 quit offering patientsWait, are you analyzing me based on this answer? The fine print In yesterday’s poll, we asked how many [robocalls]( you get in a given week. Only 6% you said don’t get any—25% get 10 or more, 26% reported five to 10, another 26% receive one to five calls, and 17% said you’ve lost count. 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