Verbal Fluency of Hispanic, Black and White Children on TAT and TEMAS, a New Thematic Apperception Test

Abstract

Ethnic minority children evidence lack of verbal fluency on projective personality tests, which in turn impugns test validity for minority examinees. This study compared Hispanic, black, and white children's verbal fluency on the TAT and TEMAS, a new thematic apperception test depicting ethnic minority characters, cultural themes and urban backgrounds. An urban sample of 72 Hispanic, 41 black and 43 white children (grades K-6) was administered a minority TEMAS, a parallel TEMAS depicting nonminority characters, and the TAT. Results indicated that females were more verbally fluent than males; Hispanics and blacks were more verbally fluent on both TEMAS tests compared to the TAT; but only Hispanics were less fluent than whites on the TAT. Enhanced verbal fluency of Hispanics and blacks on the TEMAS appears to be due to familiarity of cultural symbols and environmental settings, rather than to racial characteristics in projective test stimuli.