Projective Techniques Essay

Such tests ar ground generally on the psychoanalytic concept of throwion, the presumption existence that respondents project unconscious aspects of their individualalities on to the test items and break out them in their responses The website of the Association of Qualitative Practitioners (AQR 2004) fixates projective techniques as follows A wide range of t consumes and games in which respondents keister be asked to participate during an interrogate or group, designed to facilitate, extend or enhance the nature of the discussion.Some ar kn admit as projective techniques, being loosely based on approaches originally interpreted in a psychotherapeutic setting. These believe on the idea that somebody entrust project their own (perhaps unacceptable or shameful) feelings or beliefs onto an imaginary other someone or bit Projective techniques may be employ in soft as well as quantitative studies (Levy 1994) and they argon make use of goods and services offul (Bod dy 2004b) in some(prenominal). 240 International daybook of Market enquiry Vol. 47 add 3Projective techniques argon commonly use in soft food mart question (Gordon & angstrom unit Langmaid 1990) where the aim of the techniques is to facilitate the gaining of a deeper understanding of the area being enquiryed. In discussing projective techniques they distance the use of projective techniques in soft market enquiry from that of psychoanalytical practice, and intimate a to a greater extent pedestrian and prosaic definition Projection is the tendency to sink in objects or events with characteristics or meanings which are derived from our unconscious desires, wishes or feelings.Dichter (1964) defined projection as meaning to project subjective ideas and confine onto an object, and said that one person could ascribe their own problems or difficulties to someone else. He described these techniques as being widely used in mental give-up the ghost (Dichter 1960) and said that they are a non- bearive interview technique where the respondent can project himself onto some other and and so weaken some of the respondents own thoughts, feelings and fears.Projective vis-a-vis enabling techniques The market inquiryers Chandler and Owen (2002) define projective and enabling techniques quite succinctly and in a way with which most qualitative market question practitioners (Gordon & antiophthalmic factor Langmaid 1990 Goodyear 1998) would plausibly agree. This differentiation is recyclable to make at the beginning of this paper as the techniques are often used interchangeably and the banknote between them may bring aim blurred in the minds of some qualitative market interrogationers.Classically, the idea of a projective technique relates to a thingumajig that allows the individual interrogation participant to articulate repressed or other withheld feelings by projecting these onto another character. The idea of enabling techniques relates to a device which allows the individual research participant to get word a means of expressing feelings, thoughts and so on which they find hard to articulate. Enabling techniques are held to be the simpler (Will, Eadie & MacAskill 1996) of the two techniques as they just help population to utter about themselves. Will et al. ake the useful distinguishing read that while all projective techniques may be enabling, not all enabling techniques engage projection. Other investigators (Lysaker & Bradley 1957) make the predict that even pictorial devices, which do not function as projective techniques 241 Projective techniques in market research (i. e. devices researchers would nowadays refer to as enabling techniques), may however have utility in generating responses. Gordon and Langmaid (1990) state that the use of projective as opposed to enabling techniques is a false distinction in market research as the aim of both techniques is to facilitate deeper understanding.However, they do go on to say that in enabling techniques commonwealth are asked to do something that itself has no interpretive value (and so doesnt itself have to be interpreted). In terms of summary there is a distinction because with enabling techniques the research participants are talking as themselves (that is not to say that this speech should forever and a day be taken at manifestation value), whereas with projective techniques the research participants are talking as someone else and the researcher makes the interpretative assumption that they are talking as themselves.This arrangement over the definition of projective techniques is about as far as most research textbooks get on the subject. How they are later used is little discussed and how they are then(prenominal) analysed is hardly explicitly touched on at all (Levy 1994 Catterall 1998), which is a situation that has hardly changed from ten or more years ago.This paper aims to look at current reports of how projective techniqu es are analysed and what support for their reliability and validity exists, and aims to stimulate debate in this area of market research so that a better and more approachable understanding of the subject can be offered to those entering research as capability practitioners, to interested clients, and to researchers who are more used to a quantitative or direct teasing approach. The origins of projective techniquesProjective techniques were employed in market research from the 1940s (Catterall & Ibbotson 2000) to get along research participants to express feelings and attitudes that might otherwise be withheld due to embarrassment or fear if more direct questioning methods were used. Market research originally borrowed (Robson 2000 Boddy 2004a) projective techniques from depth psychology and clinical psychology where they are still used (Richman 1996) to gain insights into reputation and personality disorders.Projection, as a concept, originated from Freuds buy the farm on paranoia (Lilienfeld, Wood & robe 2000), where he conceptualised projection as a defence mechanism by which raft unconsciously attribute their own disallow personality traits to others. Lilienfeld et al. say that Freuds work 242 International Journal of Market Research Vol. 47 Issue 3 was subsequently developed by psychoanalysts and clinical psychologists.This suppuration was based on the hypothesis that research participants project aspects of their personalities in the process of disambiguating shapeless test stimuli, and several different techniques were developed such as the well-known inkblot test technique, or ink-blot test, where subjects are fancied to project aspects of their personality onto the ambiguous features of a set of inkblots. Projective techniques in market research A commonly used completion technique (Gordon & Langmaid 1990 Will et al. 1996) in qualitative market research is blether draw.This is a device based on a technique called the thematic Apperception Test where, according to Tucker-Ladd (2001), clinical psychologists use a series of standard pictures and ask subjects to make up stories about them. TuckerLadd says that what people see in the pictures says something about themselves and thus reveals their personality. Projective techniques can be used in a variety of market research situations as well as in social and educational research (Catterall & Ibbotson 2000), and these do not have to be aiming at uncovering aspects of personality of all great depth.For example, a bubble drawing was used (Boddy 2004a) by one researcher to uncover students underlying attitudes towards the delivery of a lecture on marketing research rather than to uncover any deeper aspects of their own personalities. Projective and enabling techniques are thus useful when research participants have difficulty expressing opinions or feelings and researchers need some way of accessing these from the participants minds (Gordon & Langmaid 19 90 Kay 2001).