The social schemata technique as a projective device

The construct validity of a modified version of Kuethe's social schemata technique was studied. The major hypothesis was that the placement and replacement responses of pairs of silhouette figures to which unfavorable attributes were ascribed would be more distant than the distances between figures to which more favorable characteristics were attributed. When the data of 160 male college students, performing under five sets, two directions of set, and on two tasks, were analyzed, the direction of set effect, i.e., favorable or unfavorable characterizations of stimuli, was significant. Positive sets led to significantly closer placements than negative sets but only on the free-placement method.