Szondi test


The Szondi test is a 1935 nonverbal projective personality test developed by Léopold Szondi.

Theoretical background

Drive theory and drive diagram

In contrast to Freud's work, Szondi's approach is based on a systematic drive theory and a dimensional model of personality. That is, Szondi means to enumerate all human drives, classifying and framing them within a comprehensive theory.
Szondi drive system is built on the basis of eight drive needs, each corresponding to a collective archetype of instinctive action. They are:
The eight drive needs represent archetypes and are present in all individuals in different proportions; a fundamental assumption of Fate analysis is that the difference between mental "illness" and mental "health" is not qualitative but quantitative.
A whole drive, like the sexual drive S, is composed of a pair of two opposite drive needs, in this case h and s. Each drive need in turn has a positive and negative striving, for instance h+ and h-, or s+ and s-.
The four whole drives correspond to the four independent hereditary circles of mental illness established by the psychiatric genetics of the time: the schizoform drive, the manic-depressive drive, the paroxysmal drive, and the sexual drive.
Szondi's drive diagram has been described as his major discovery and achievement. It has also been described as a revolutionary addition to psychology, and as paving the way for a theoretical psychiatry and a psychoanalytical anthropology.
Szondi theory organizes phenomenons like: Antisocial personality disorder, paraphilia subtypes, histrionic personality disorder, paranoid proper as "projective paranoid", narcissistic personality disorder as "inflative paranoid", blunted affect, panic disorder, phobia, hypochondria, stupor, somatization and pain disorder as organ neurosis, conversion disorder, dissociative fugue, paroxysmal attack, depersonalization disorder and alienation, obsessive–compulsive disorder and obsessive–compulsive personality disorder.

The drive factors and vectors in detail

Fate analysis and anthropology

Szondi analysis of destiny approach is based an anthropological preoccupation. Szondi's main philosophical references for the concept of fate are Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation and Heidegger's Being and Time.
Fate analysis of a patient is based on the test score, the patient medical history, and his family background through a genealogical tree. Fate analysis includes Genotropism, a form of depth psychology that had some prominence in Europe in the mid-20th century, but has been ignored for the most part.
The starting assumption of fate analysis is that a person's life unfolds in a series of elections: one chooses an occupation, acquaintances, partners, family, and ultimately his decisions implicitly selects his illnesses and his death. Szondi’s experience in genealogy research led him to believe that these elections can not be considered only as the individual sovereign decision, but that such choices often follow certain patterns that preexisted within his family ancestors. Szondi concluded that some life choices are genetically inherited.

Profession choice and fate

Szondi argued that his research showed that profession choices are determined by the dynamic and structure of the psyche, a phenomenon that he called operotropism.
Of the many possibilities in which operotropism can manifest itself, he gave two examples. A man may choose a profession in which he can engage with individuals with related inclinations; this is the case of a psychiatrist with paranoid schizoform inclinations, or a lawyer with querulant inclinations and an addiction to litigation. The second example of operotropism is a man that chooses a profession in which he can satisfy in a socially acceptable manner needs that in their original primary form would constitute a danger for society. This is the case of pyromania-firefighter, sadism-butcher, coprophilia-intestine or -drain cleaner. Most jobs can satisfy more than one drive need.

Professions of the sexual circle

Hermaphrodite professions
The work object of the hermaphrodite professions is the body ; the work circumstances are bathhouse, beach, barber shop, restaurant, café, theater, circus, millinery, brothel; the main sensory perceptions are taste and sight; work instruments are jewelry, clothing; professional activities are eyelining, make-up, handcraft, weaving, embroidery, darning.
Jobs of the hermaphrodite type are hairdresser, esthetician, dermatologist, gynecologist, bath house, beauty parlor and spa worker, fashion illustrator, performing artist, singer, ballet dancers, dance artists, servant, waiter, hotel manager, confectioner, cook.
Criminal, or most socially negative, activities of hermaphrodite type are fraud, embezzlement, spy, prostitute, pimp, procuring. The most socially positive professions are gynecologist and sexual pathologist.
Sadistic professions
The work objects of the sadistic professions are animals, stone, iron, metal, machinery, soil, wood; the work circumstances are stall, slaughterhouse, animal breeding facilities, zoo, arena, mine, forest, mountain, operating theater, dissecting room; the main sensory perceptions are depth perception and muscle sense; work instruments are the primordial tools: ax, hatchet, pickaxe, chisel, hammer, drill, knife, whip; the work activity is big muscle work.
Sadistic jobs type are truck driver, farm servant, animal tamer, veterinary, manicure, pedicure, animal slaughter, surgical nurse, surgeon, dentist, anatomist, hangman, forestry worker, lumberjack, stonemason, miner, road worker, sculptor, chauffeur, soldier, wrestler, physical education teacher, gym instructor, masseur.

Schizoform professions

Katatonoid professions
The work objects of the katatonoid professions are the reproductive and abstract sciences: logic, maths, physics, aesthetics, geography, grammar, and so on; the work circumstances are closed spaces, classrooms, archives, libraries, "ivory towers," monasteries; the sensory perceptions are turned off; work instruments are books; professional activities are writing, reading.
Jobs of the schizoform, katatonoid, drive striving k+: pedagogue, soldier, engineer, professor. Personality traits found in this group are aristocratic exclusivity, eccletic friendship choices, systematizate, schematize, rigid formalism.
Jobs of the schizoform, katatonic, drive striving k-: aesthetician, art critic; accountant, lower officer, cartographer, technical drafter, graphic designer; postal worker, telegraph operator; printer; farmer, forester; lighthouse keeper, security guard; model. Personality traits found in this group are pedantry, accuracy, exemplarity; lack of humor, taciturnity, brusqueness; phlegm, callousness, calm; hypersensitivity; obstinacy, stubbornness; Inability to debate, self-consciousness; narrow-mindedness, bigotry; compulsiveness, automation, mannerisms; Feeling of omnipotence, autism; inability to be absorbed in the other ; taciturnity, immobility, all-having.
Criminal, or most socially negative, activities of katatonic type are work aversion, lone vagrancy, world wanderer, burglary. On the other extreme of the spectrum, the most socially positive professions are professor, logician, philosopher, aesthetician, theoretical mathematician, physicist.
Paranoid professions
The work objects of the paranoid professions are the pragmatic and analytic sciences, music, mysticism, mythology, occultism; the work circumstances are research institutes, labs, chemical factories, exotic places, the depths of the mind and of the Earth, mental hospital, prison; the main sensory perceptions are olfaction and hearing; work instruments are ideas, creativity, inspiration.
The hebephrenic group belongs to the schizoform professions and partially overlaps with the paranoid professions. Hebephrenic jobs include graphologist and astrologer.

Paroxymal professions

Epileptiform professions
The work objects of the epileptiform professions are the primordial elements earth, fire, water, air, spirit; the work circumstances are height/depth, rise/fall, waves/swirling motion ; the main sensory perceptions are balance and olfaction; work instruments are means of transportation: bicycle, electric or conventional train, boat, automobile, aircraft; professional activities are locomotion and moving occupations for the striving e-, and praying, devotion, care, help, charity for the striving e+.
Jobs of the epileptiform, "Cain" striving e- include: porter, carter, sailor, able seaman, chauffeur, aviator; blacksmith, stoker, oven operator, chimney sweep, firefighter, pyrotechnician, baker; soldier. While those of the "Moses" striving e+ group include: priest, missionary woman, nun, monk, "protectress", public health doctor.
Criminal, or most socially negative, epileptiform activities are kleptomania, pyromania, crime of passion, while the most socially positive are religious professions, health care provider, forensic pathology.
Hysteriform professions
The work object of the hysteriform professions is the own person; the work circumstances are audience, theater, meeting, mass, street; work instruments and activities are playing with oneself, facial expressions, the voice, color and movement effects.
Jobs of the hysteriform group include: acting ; politics professionals: member of parliament, chief of Bureau or in factory; car driver; animal tamer; market woman, town crier, barker; performing artist, orator; model; sports: swordsmanship, horseback riding, hunting, wrestling and mountain climbing.
A criminal, or most socially negative, epiletiform activity is impostor, while the most socially positive are politician, actor.

Test description

It is a projective personality test, the same category of the most-known Rorschach test, but with the crucial difference of being nonverbal. The test consists in showing the examinee a series of facial photographs, displayed in six groups of eight each. All 48 subjects featured in the photographs are mental patients, each group containing a photo of a person whose personality had been classified as homosexual, a sadist, an epileptic, an hysteric, a katatonic, a paranoid, a depressive and a maniac. The subject is asked to choose the two most appealing and the two most repulsive photos of each group. The choices will supposedly reveal the subject satisfied and unsatisfied instinctive drive needs, and the subject's dimensions of personality. Each photo is supposed to be a stimulus apt to detect the pulsional drive tendencies of the examinee, from which the main personality traits can surface. Szondi said that for some disturbed examinees the stimulus of seeing the photo of a mental patient with the same pathology caused them to have crisis and convulsions during the test examination.
Szondi further broke down the results into four different vectors: a homosexual/sadistic, epileptic/hysterical, catatonic/paranoid and depressive/manic.
Szondi believed that people are inherently attracted to people similar to them. His theory of genotropism states that there are specific genes that regulate mate selection, and that similarly-gened individuals would seek each other out.
To interpret the test scores, a variety of methods have been developed by Szondi himself and other researchers. They can be classified as quantitative, qualitative and proportional methods.

Accomplishments and results

Szondi said that from a sociological perspective, the most important discovery made through fate psychology has been operotropism, that is the discerning of the role played by latent inherited genes in the choice of a particular vocation or profession.

Production

The Szondi test is a psychological exam named after its Jewish Hungarian creator, Léopold Szondi in the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest Hungary. The test was first formulated by Szondi around 1935.
In 1944, Szondi published Schicksalsanalyse, the first of a five volume series.

Forms of existence

In 1960 Szondi began to collaborate with psychotherapeut Armin Beeli on 17 "forms of existence", dived in two main groups "forms of danger" and "forms of protection". On the basis of the syndromatics published in book 3 and 4 of the Schicksalsanalyse, one or two forms of existence are detected from each test profile. First results of this research were published in 1963.
Szondi condensed the syndromatics into a table called Testsymptome zur Bestimmung der 17 Existenzformen, which was published in Szondiana VI and in the final edition of book 2. However, the table alone is not sufficient, as analysis of the forms existence still demands "solid knowledge and practice of Syndromatik", in addition to thorough training in Fate Analysis thinking.

Origin of the photographs

30 of the 48 photographs were taken from Wilhelm Weygandt's 1901 Atlas und Grundriss der Psychiatrie, which is now in the public domain.
Of the remaining 18 pictures:
Six photos were from a criminologic clinic in Stockholm directed by St. Strobl. and four were taken by Szondi himself in Hungary.
The shock element of the photos is crucial. Commenting an experiment with alternative pictures of mental patients, Szondi argued that since the photos used were nicer or less disturbing, they failed to trigger the responses that the test is supposed to.

The dispute on statistics

The Szondi test is not widely used in modern clinical psychology, because its psychometric properties are weak. However, it remains in the history of psychology as one of the well-known psychological instruments, although its use today is marginal, being replaced by modern psychological instruments, with good psychometric properties.

Influences

Szondi Fate analysis has influenced philosophers Henri Niel, Alphonse De Waelhens and Henry Maldiney, and psychiatrist Jacques Schotte. In 1949, Susan Deri published the first English language description to the Szondi test. Some graphologists attempted to integrate the szondi test with graphological test; however, Sonzdi was not a graphologist and the goal of his test was in contrast with graphology.
In 1959, the international Szondi Society was established, and holds a symposium every three years. In 1969, The Szondi Institute was formed, and published from Zurich the journal Szondiana.
Artist Kurt Kren created a motion picture, 2/60 48 Köpfe aus dem Szondi-Test, from the still shots of the Szondi test in 1964.

Szondi books on fate analysis

Main books series

Szondi's main work is his five volume series on fate analysis. They were first published from 1944 to 1963. The first two were later republished in multiple revised editions. They are:
In 1963, after finishing the fifth volume, he published Introduction to Fate Analysis; it is a short book that collects conferences he held at the University of Zurich the previous year, with the aim of introducing to a larger public the most important results of his research. The conference collection was first published in French translation, as they were unpublished in German. A second tome of introductory conferences has also been published:
Other works by Szondi include: