When's a story a story? Determining interpretability of Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale-Global ratings on Thematic Apperception Test narratives.
The Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale-Global Rating Method (SCORS-G) measures the quality of object relations in narrative material. The reliability and validity of this measure have been well established. However, a psychometric oddity of this scale is that default ratings are given to select dimensions when the relevant construct is not present. This can result in narrative 'blandness' and may impact clinical findings. The aim of these two studies is to understand these phenomena both psychometrically and clinically. In the first study, we identified 276 outpatients who had SCORS-G ratings for TAT Cards 1, 2, 3BM, and 14, set criteria for narrative 'blandness' across all eight dimensions, and examined group differences. In Study 2, we used a subset (N = 99) of Study 1 and examined how percentage of formal default ratings for Emotional Investment in Values and Moral Standards (EIM), Experience and Management of Aggressive Impulses (AGG), Self-Esteem(SE), and Identify and Coherence of Self (ICS) impacted robustness of correlations across tests of intelligence, psychopathology, and normal personality functioning. Taken together, we identified clinical characteristics of patients who are more likely to produce 'bland' narratives and increased percentages of formal default ratings. Also, an excess of default ratings per protocol impacts robustness of correlations and weakens significant correlations. As cut-off scores increase (>25% and >28.12%), the likelihood of being able to interpret EIM, AGG, SE, and ICS decreases. Psychometric and clinical implications are discussed.
['Stein|Michelle B|MB|https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4179-0817', 'Calderon|Solara|S|', 'Ruchensky|Jared|J|', 'Massey|Christina|C|', 'Slavin-Mulford|Jenelle|J|', 'Chung|Wei-Jean|WJ|', 'Richardson|Laura A|LA|', 'Blais|Mark A|MA|']
D000328:Adult D005260:Female D006801:Humans D007360:Intelligence D008297:Male D033262:Narration D009769:Object Attachment D011599:Psychopathology D015203:Reproducibility of Results D000083282:Social Cognition D013803:Thematic Apperception Test
social cognition object relations SCORS-G default ratings TAT performance-based tasks