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The development of a scoring system for the Gerontological Apperception Test
Author(s) -
Hayslip Bert,
Francis Jacqueline,
Radika Lisa M.,
Lambert Paul,
Panek Paul E.,
Bosmajian Linda
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/jclp.1157
Subject(s) - psychology , bivariate analysis , test (biology) , thematic apperception test , apperception , clinical psychology , dimension (graph theory) , interpersonal relationship , scoring system , psychometrics , correlation , interpersonal communication , developmental psychology , social psychology , statistics , cognitive psychology , medicine , paleontology , geometry , mathematics , surgery , pure mathematics , biology
To explore the viability of a revised and more differentiated scoring system for use with the Gerontological Apperception Test (GAT; Wolk & Wolk, 1971), 102 older adults (mean age = 68.3 years) were administered the GAT. Scoring criteria were developed to reflect a variety of constructs speaking to the interpersonal, health‐related, and intrapsychic dimensions of the experience of later life. For each of these 20 GAT variables, indices of interscorer agreement exceeded 80%. Bivariate correlations suggested that 12 of 20 GAT dimension scores were related to chronological age as well as to scores derived from measures of crystallized and fluid ability. This also was true for 2 of 5 GAT factor scores. Not only do these data suggest that newly developed GAT variables can be reliably scored, but they also indicate that these more carefully differentiated variables relate to measures of intellectual functioning in theoretically meaningful ways. These findings therefore speak to the utility of the GAT using more carefully defined scoring criteria. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 58: 471–478, 2002.