GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS

This scoring manual is designed to be used to score thematic apperception stories. It involves evaluating the presence or absence of five stylistic characteristics of stories. Two of these characteristics (Causality and Reason-Action Sequence) are scored +1; the other three (Uncaused Action, Mental State Ending, and Ineffective Actor) are scored −1 (“negative” and “positive” scores simply indicate positions along a bipolar continuum rather than evaluations). Each scoring category should be evaluated independently of each other category. Each category may be scored only once per story. Therefore, each story will receive a score ranging from −3 to +2.

In preparation for scoring a story, a scorer must make a number of judgments. These judgments involve two general issues: First, what are the essential components of the narrative? That is, the scorer must identify the story plot and separate that plot from any editorial commentary by the author that is irrelevant to the story. Typically “editorial comments” include comments on the picture used to elicit the story (“that's very dated,” “that's too dark,” etc.), political statements (“this is elitist”), and evaluations or judgments (“I don't like her,” etc.). However, if a story is nothing but such editorial comment, and involves no narrative at all, then Uncaused Action (UA) is scored.