Question

You are studying the modal personality of a particular group of people by giving them rorschach tests. in american society, a response to the white background (the page on which the inkblots are placed) has been associated with the psychological trait of negativism. you are puzzled because you are getting a lot of white responses, but the people don't appear to be negative in other respects. then you find out that their favorite color is white, and that they are treating the color of the page not as a background but as a part of the design of the inkblot. how would an anthropologist explain this to a psychologist?

Answer 1

The above scenario is one of the problems faced by people trying to determine modal personality, which is C: that tests devised in one cultural setting may not be appropriate in another.

This is true since different cultures adapt to different types of situation. We may have one cultural setting that responds well in a certain test but another one responds poorly to the same tests due to different circumstances.