Page 18 - Failure to Triumph - Journey of A Student

My Target Service Selection Board (SSB)

Thematic Apperception Test-TAT of SSB

Interview

Why Thematic Apperception Test?

This pictures originally employed for this purpose were very vague. There was a great play of
projection or inner sub consciousness in the interpretation of these T.A.T pictures with
greater details and needing less play of projection and imagination were introduced by two
psychologist, Murray and Margon, who used these in 1903 and the same are generally in use in
India.

The test is based on the theory that in the construction of stories around ambiguous pictures, the
candidate organizes the material from his own personal experiences, partly as a result of the
stimulus that he receives i.e. what he finds in the picture and partly his associations with such stimuli
recalled from his past experiences.

Thematic Apperception Test comes under the psychological test series. In this test the candidates
are shown 12 different pictures, one after the other, and are expected to write stories relevant to the
pictures. Each picture is shown for about thirty seconds and thereafter, four minutes are given to
write the stories relevant to that picture. The last picture is always a blank picture, on which you have
to write any story of your own choice. However, the other stories must be purely based on the shown
picture.

The picture can be perceived in many a ways, but the candidate has to remember that the story that
he writes shows his personality and his thinking. The actions in your story that are done by the hero
of your story, is actually thought as the actions that you will undertake in those conditions. For
example, if the picture shows a site of an accident, you could write a how the hero of your story saw
that and helped the injured and took appreciable actions.