The impact of Extrapolation and Judgement on Rorschach Form Quality coding: Interrater reliability and clinical implications

Rorschach Form Quality (FQ) describes how well a response fits a given inkblot location and is derived from how frequently it is identified and whether raters judge it to be a good fit. A large body of research has established that FQ has excellent validity as a measure of reality testing and severity of psychological disturbance. However, some studies have reported sub-optimal interrater reliability (IRR). In this article we inspected 1588 responses from 60 archival Rorschach protocols. We examined the frequency with which FQ was Tabled (T), Extrapolated (E) or Judged (J), and tested the strength of the association of FQ determination path to FQ scores and IRR. Results showed that when compared to T responses, E and J responses were characterized by increasingly poorer FQ and less optimal IRR. Taken together, these results confirm that the determination path used to code FQ has a notable impact on the scoring accuracy and IRR of FQ. In order to reduce the FQ coding inconsistencies, the authors suggest that future R-PAS developments might try to incorporate computer algorithms to help with the attribution of FQ codes.