Home > Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders > Thematic Apperception Test

Definition

The Thematic Apperception Test, or TAT, is a projective measure intended to evaluate a person's patterns of thought, attitudes, observational capacity, and emotional responses to ambiguous test materials. In the case of the TAT, the ambiguous materials consist of a set of cards that portray human figures in a variety of settings and situations. The subject is asked to tell the examiner a story about each card that includes the following elements: the event shown in the picture; what has led up to it; what the characters in the picture are feeling and thinking; and the outcome of the event.

Because the TAT is an example of a projective instrument— that is, it asks the subject to project his or her habitual patterns of thought and emotional responses onto the pictures on the cards— many psychologists prefer not to call it a "test," because...