HAND TEST

Presented by:
Gonzales, Maria Fe A.
Hamor, Alyssa L.
Litan, Mary Christine
Mangalili, Jan Mari B.
CONTENTS

Introduction of Hand Test

01 History of Development, 03 Test Cards
Description, Purpose, Limitations
and Administration

Psychometric Properties
02 Reliability and Validity of 04 Scoring & Interpretation
Hand Test

05 Research Journal
 01

Hand Test: Introduction

● A simple projective technique widely

used to measure action
tendencies—particularly acting-out and
aggressive behavior—in adults and
children.
● Contains pictures of a hand as a
medium.
● Non-threatening and easy to
administer, it’s an ideal starting point
in any diagnostic personality
evaluation.
History (Ancient)

About 3500 B.C Egyptian and other culture employed the hand as a symbol of life, “Ka” the vital principle.
History (Modern)

The first scientific attempts in relating the hand to personality was developed out of the study of BODY TYPES
BY KRETSCHMER in 1931
Development and Description

● The development began in later 1950’s.

● The Hand Test was first introduced in the

form of a research monograph as a
promising technique for predicting overt
aggressive behavior, but it soon became
apparent that the instrument was suitable for
general diagnostic purposes.

● Piotrowski (1957) felt that a projective

instrument was needed, by its nature, to
mirror attitudes and action tendencies that
are close to the surface and apt to reveal the
individual's behaviour.

● In 1958, Hand Test “kit” was put together by

Edwin Wagner, made up of the stimulus
cards, manual, and scoring tablet.
Description

● Responses to hands in ambiguous poses

indicate these hierarchical and
diagnostically useful scheme.
●
● The Hand Test is a newer projective test
which utilizes ten (10) cards, nine with
simple drawings of single hands doing
various things and positions, while the last
card is blank, left for the imagination of
the subject.
Purpose of Hand Test

● Can reveal action tendencies

● Fantasy life, specific defense mechanisms, intelligence,
and so forth can only be partially discovered or inferred
from the test results
● Accurate measures of these variables can be assessed
more efficiently from other appropriate techniques
● Since hands are involved to a great extent in everything
humans do, a projective test utilizing hands in relatively
ambiguous positions would be expected to elicit
responses which would have behavioral implications.
Limitations of Hand Test

• This test cannot be used alone as it does not provide complete

and concrete diagnosis.

• The test is short as compared to other projective techniques. It is

fairly structured providing good or bad responses that may hinder
its discriminatory ability.

• The test is optimally sensitive to the examinees immediate

psychological state.

• The test should not be considered complete in regard to the

multidimensional possibilities of personality assessment as they
are close to motor system therefore fantasy life, specific defence
mechanism, intelligence can be partially discovered by hand test.
Administration of the Test
Administration

● Stimulus cards should be faced down on the table.

● The test only requires about 10 minutes to administer
● The cards are shown one at a time, after which the subject is
then asked to “tell me what you think the hands could be doing”.
● Some of the hand gestures are clearer than others, but are
meant to be relatively ambiguous.
● After 9 cards, the last card is shown to be blank. The subject is
then asked to “imagine a hand and tell me what it could be
doing.”
● The results are then recorded, (response should be copied
verbatim) scored and interpreted by the administrator.
● Initial time response for each response should be recorded.
● If the examinee cannot provide a scorable response to a card
(i.e produces failure) no initial response time is recorded for that
card.
Instances

Instances include the following:

If the examinee gives a short, response card, such as “its up”, the
examiner should prompt the examinee by asking, “What is it
doing?”

If the examinee gives only one response to the first card, the
examiner should ask “anything else?”

When an examinee fails a card, the examinee says, “Can you

guess?”
 02

Hand Test: Psychometric

Properties

● Reliability
● Validity
Reliability

● Interscorer Reliability - from .71 to 1.00 with a median of .91

● Split-half Reliability - from .84 to .85

● Test-Retest Reliability - ranged from .33 to .89 with a median of

.65

● Internal Consistency for subjects in high school and older

population was examined and showed high split-half reliability for

scores on Interpersonal, Environmental, Maladjustive, Withdrawal,

Number of Responses (R), Average Initial Response Time (AIRT),

and Pathological.
Validity

Criterion Validity

● Interpersonal = .56

● Active = .40

● Maladjustive = .36

● Withdrawal = .81

Predictive Validity = .55

Differential Validity - The Hand Test is able to assess a spectrum of behavioral

tendencies ranging from adaptive and maladaptive behavior in a variety of testing

populations.

Convergent and Divergent Validity = 27 to .40 and .40 to .64

 03

Hand Test: Test Cards

● Using pictures of hands as the

projective medium, the test elicits
responses that reflect behavioral
tendencies.
 04

Hand Test: Scoring &

Interpretation

● To score the test, you simply classify responses

according to clear-cut quantitative and qualitative
scoring categories.
● Quantitative scores reflect overt behavior, while
qualitative scores reflect underlying feelings and
motivations.
● The test also provides six summary scores, including
an index of overall pathology and an acting-out ratio,
which is used to predict aggressive behavior.
 Scoring and Interpretation

1. Interpersonal
- Interpersonal responses claim that the hands are preparing for handshakes, offering
comfort, communicating by pointing or even pushing away. Interpersonal responses are
those that are generally in connection with other persons.

2. Environmental
- Environmental responses includes anything that connects the drawing to nonhuman
objects.

3. Maladaptive
- Maladaptive responses indicate distress of some kind. They can be responses that
insist a fist is tensed to hold in anger or a hand is warding off a blow.

4. Withdrawal
- Consists of people refusing to go along with the test. Subjects just tend to describe the
hand but not say what it’s doing, or being very abstract about their answers.
 Scoring and Interpretation

1. Interpersonal (INT)

● Affection (AFF)

• Affectionate person participates in pleasurable relationships which involve mutual

interchange of positive feelings and attitudes.
• They give and receive affection and generally impress others as being reasonable
and friendly.

● Dependence (DEP)

• Dependent people are those who need others.

• These persons are willing to subordinate themselves in order to receive care and
protection.
• Dependence responses are considered to be socially positive and essential to
people’s well being.
 Scoring and Interpretation

1. Interpersonal (INT)

● Communication (COM)

• Communication responses are given by examinees who engage in reciprocal

information exchanges as a way of displaying interpersonal roles.
• These type of responses can be found among all types of individuals.

● Exhibition (EXH)

• In exhibition responses the individual desires pleasure from receiving the attention of
others.
• The need for praise and being the center of attention is a major part of an exhibition
responses.
• People showing exhibition responses are egocentric and individualistic.
 Scoring and Interpretation (Quantitative Scoring Category)

1. Interpersonal (INT)

● Direction (DIR)

• These people manipulate others into fulfilling their needs but neither dislike those
people being manipulated.
• Individuals who are not directive are not suitable for social success.

● Aggression (AGG)

• Aggressive people are often social, seek to hurt others, and are ineffective in real
goals.
• Limited no of aggressive responses especially mixed with positive interpersonal
responses, may be expected in normal individuals.
Scoring and Interpretation (Quantitative Scoring Category)

2. Environmental (ENV)

● Acquisition (ACQ)

• Individuals who produce many acquisition responses tend to set their sights high
and pursue even greater accomplishment than they have already achieved.
• Athletes, sales personnel, and scientists may all produce acquisition responses
although their goals differ.

● Active (ACT)

• Active responses are generally given by examinees who are involved in

constructive accomplishment.
• Home-worker, laborer and expert burglar may all give Active responses even
though the purpose toward which they direct their efforts differs greatly.
Scoring and Interpretation (Quantitative Scoring Category)

2. Environmental (ENV)

● Passive (PAS)

• A passive response means that at least some of the time an individual will desire
allowing psychological or physical passivity.
• The greater the number of passive responses, the more the examinee gravitates
toward situations which assure few struggles.
Scoring and Interpretation (Quantitative Scoring Category)

3. Maladjustive (MAL)

● Tension (TEN)

• Tension responses may be given by normal individuals who suppress or waste

action tendencies.

● Crippled (CRI)

• In crippled responses the examinee projects his or her psychological

insufficiencies and inadequacies by physical deforming the hand.
• Crippled responses may indicate many types of inferiority (e.g. intellectual,
emotional, physical).
Scoring and Interpretation (Quantitative Scoring Category)

3. Maladjustive (MAL)

● Fear (FEAR)

• Phobic experience and individual’s own internalized hostility can produce fear
response.
• Responses of this type reflect genuine apprehension about threat to ego
integrity.
• Fear responses generally have greater pathological significance than tension or
crippled responses.
Scoring and Interpretation (Quantitative Scoring Category)

4. Withdrawal (WITH)

● Description (DFS)

• This type of response is most typical of deteriorated schizophrenics, although

neurotic, mentally retarded and a rare normal examinee also produce description
responses.
• Elaborated description responses reflect unique emotional states, where as simple
description responses represent an attempt to deal with reality.

● Bizarre (BIZ)

• Bizarre responses are the most serious of all withdrawal responses.

• The examinee partially or completely ignores the hand stimuli and projects his or
her illogical perceptions onto the hand.
• Bizarre responses mostly appear in schizophrenics who are displaying psychotic
symptomatology (e.g., delusions and hallucinations).
Scoring and Interpretation (Quantitative Scoring Category)

4. Withdrawal (WITH)

● Failure (FAIL)

• Failure responses represent the inability of the examinee to attend or respond to

hand stimuli.
• Failure have serious implications and should not be taken lightly.
• Deterioration, especially organic deterioration is indicated when several failures are
produced by the examinee.
Scoring and Interpretation (Qualitative Scoring Category)
Scoring and Interpretation (Qualitative Scoring Category)
Scoring and Interpretation
Scoring and Interpretation
Scoring (Quantitative Scoring Category)
Scoring (Quantitative Scoring Category)
Scoring (Quantitative Scoring Category)
 Scoring (Quantitative Scoring Category)

1. List all the scoring symbols and insert the total number of times the category
has appeared.

2. Experience Ratio (ER) - total the number of responses and arranged them in
this order:
Interpersonal (AFF-DEP-COM-EXH-DIR-AGG) : Environmental
(ACC-ACT-PAS) : Maladjustive (TEN-CRIP-FEAR) : Withdrawal
(DES-FAIL)
3. Compute the total number of responses.

4. Compute the average initial response time (AIRT) by totaling the ten initial
response times in seconds, dividing by ten.
Scoring (Quantitative Scoring Category)
Scoring (Quantitative Scoring Category)

5. Compute high minus low score (H-L), by subtracting the lowest initial
response time (IRT) in seconds for the highest IRT.

6. Acting Out Ratio - to identify tendencies to act on feelings of aggression

AOR = (AFF + DEP + COM + FEAR) - (DIR + AGG)

7. Find the pathological , PATH score by adding the total number of

maladjustment scores two times the total number of withdrawal scores.
(PATH = MAL – 2 WITH)

8. Any important qualitative aspects of the administration and/or scoring should

also be recorded.
 05

Hand Test: Research Journal

● Anjum, F. A., & Batool, I. (2018).

Inter Scorer Reliability of Hand Test.
Pakistan Journal of Social and
Clinical Psychology, 16(1), 47-50.
● Gorman, C. N. (2018). Exploring the
Usefulness of the Hand Test in
Assessing Marital Satisfaction.
 Inter Scorer Reliability of Hand Test (2018)

● The present study was carried out to establish the psychometric properties (inter
scorer reliability) of the Modified Hand Test.
● Agreement was considered as very high between pair of scorers. A high level of
agreement was found between scorers one and two of 88%, scorers two and three
of 86%, and scorers one and three of 87%.
Exploring the Usefulness of the Hand Test in Assessing
Marital Satisfaction (2018)

● The author hypothesized that the more adaptive, constructive responses a

participant provided on the Hand Test, the higher that person would score on a
marital satisfaction questionnaire.
● a simple linear regression failed to find statistical significance that the Hand Test
can make any statements about the health of a marriage.
References

● Anjum, F. A., & Batool, I. (2018). Inter Scorer Reliability of Hand Test.Pakistan
Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 16(1), 47-50.
● Gorman, C. N. (2018). Exploring the Usefulness of the Hand Test in Assessing
Marital Satisfaction.
● Wagner, E.E. ”The Hand Test Manual”, 1983, Los Angeles: California, Western
psychological services.
● Wagner’s Hand Test. (2022). Unistica. Retrieved from:
https://en.unistica.com/wagners-hand-test/
THANK YOU!