Symbol Elaboration Test

1. Abstract

The Symbol Elaboration Test (SET) is an expressive-projective psychometric instrument originally designed by clinical psychologist Johanna Krout in 1950 to evaluate unconscious dynamics, personality structure, affective conflicts, and perceptual-motor organization in both normative and psychiatric cohorts. Grounded in psychoanalytic theory, ego psychology, and Gestalt perceptual principles, the SET bridges the diagnostic divide between structural non-verbal projective drawings (such as the Wartegg Drawing Completion Test) and thematic verbal association techniques (such as the Thematic Apperception Test). The test battery consists of eleven standardized incomplete stimulus figures—hypothetical symbols operationalizing foundational archetypal and interpersonal human dilemmas, including dependency, hostility, somatic security, psychosexual identity, and authority relationships. Administration follows a standardized two-phase protocol: an initial graphic production phase during which respondents elaborate the stimulus lines into completed drawings, followed by a structured inquiry comprising seven standardized free-response probes (Questions A through G) addressing content identity, subjective execution difficulty, aesthetic preference, portrayed mood, narrative persona attribution, personal affective resonance, and associative memory.

Psychometrically, Krout’s foundational monograph established substantial inter-rater scoring concordances (frequently exceeding r = .80 across categorical thematic indices) and demonstrable discriminant validity, effectively distinguishing between neurosis, character disorders, psychotic states, and adjusted controls. While developed prior to modern contemporary psychometric paradigms such as confirmatory factor analysis and item response theory, modern evaluative syntheses locate the SET within qualitative structural coding schemas and multi-method personality assessments. The total testing session averages 50 to 60 minutes. This monograph presents a detailed analytical overview of the instrument’s conceptual foundation, historical emergence, scoring taxonomy, empirical reliability, clinical utility, psychodynamic validity paradigms, and contemporary psychometric status.

2. Keywords

Symbol Elaboration Test, Johanna Krout, projective drawing techniques, expressive techniques, psychoanalytic assessment, Gestalt completion, personality assessment, unconscious dynamics, projective inquiry, projective psychometrics

3. Authors

The Symbol Elaboration Test was designed, standardized, and published by Johanna Krout, Ph.D. (later known academically as Johanna Krout Tabin), an American clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst associated with the Chicago Psychological Institute and the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago during the mid-20th century. Dr. Krout made foundational contributions to psychoanalytic training, child and adult clinical assessment, and projective semiotics.

Her seminal monograph introducing the complete theoretical, methodological, and empirical validation of the instrument was published under the auspices of the American Psychological Association:

• Author: Johanna Krout, Ph.D.
• Primary Historical Affiliation: Chicago Psychological Institute; University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
• Landmark Publication: Krout, J. (1950). Symbol Elaboration Test (S.E.T.): The reliability and validity of a new projective technique. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 64(4), i–67.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Symbol Elaboration Test is to provide an objective, standardized medium through which an individual’s unconscious motivational patterns, defensive configurations, affective attitudes, and self-other representations can be systematically externalized, observed, and quantified. Clinical assessment frequently encounters defensive barriers, including conscious impression management, intellectualization, alexithymia, and resistance, which often constrain the utility of self-report inventories like the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) or direct clinical interviews. The SET bypasses conscious ego defenses by utilizing ambiguous, minimalist graphic symbols that tap into implicit perceptual-motor habits and affective projections.

The instrument was engineered to resolve a specific methodological dilemma inherent in early-to-mid 20th-century projective testing. Traditional instruments tended to occupy polar ends of a structural spectrum: the Rorschach Inkblot Test provided ambiguous perceptual stimuli yielding structural response data but limited narrative graphic agency, whereas the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) yielded rich narrative scripts while imposing culturally specific, highly detailed pictorial scenes. Drawing tasks like the Draw-A-Person (DAP) or House-Tree-Person (HTP) permitted motor expression but introduced significant artistic variance and performance anxiety. The SET bridged these approaches by offering constrained, standardized starting points (incomplete graphic symbols) that trigger spontaneous Gestalt closure, followed directly by verbal narrative inquiry.

In applied clinical contexts, the SET fulfills multiple diagnostic and therapeutic functions:

• Differential Diagnosis: Assisting in the discrimination between neurotic inhibition, characterological personality disorders, affective disturbances, organic impairment, and schizophrenic thought disorders through analysis of bizarre elaborations, loss of stimulus contact, or pervasive perseveration.
• Structural Personality Profiling: Uncovering an individual’s baseline psychic organization, including impulse control, tolerance for ambiguity, capacity for adaptive regression in the service of the ego, and primary defense mechanisms (e.g., repression, isolation of affect, projection, reaction formation).
• Trauma and Conflict Mapping: Identifying repressed affective foci and somatic preoccupations through symbolic representations of vulnerability, boundary compromise, or catastrophic content in response to specific stimulus configurations.
• Process Monitoring and Psychotherapy Planning: Serving as an expressive baseline before psychoanalytic psychotherapy or psychodynamic treatment, permitting clinicians to gauge ego strength, assess symbolic flexibility, and track internal reorganization across therapeutic intervals.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct evaluated by the Symbol Elaboration Test is symbolic elaboration and projection: the psychological process whereby internalized representational models, affective drives, and unconscious conflicts are mapped onto standardized ambiguous visual stimuli through motoric completion and cognitive-verbal attribution. Rather than treating personality as a static aggregate of conscious behavioral traits, the construct of the SET conceptualizes the human psyche as a dynamic open system regulated by ego mechanisms that continually resolve internal instinctual pressures and external environmental constraints.

The operational framework of the SET rests upon several interrelated psychological sub-dimensions:

5.1. Perceptual-Motor Gestalt Integration and Boundary Organization

This dimension assesses how the subject perceives the incomplete stimulus and mobilizes visuospatial coordination to achieve visual closure. Based on Gestalt psychology, incomplete visual forms generate tension that demands completion (the Law of Prägnanz). How an individual completes this tension reveals underlying ego strength:

• Integrated Elaboration: Incorporates the stimulus lines organically into a unified, balanced perceptual whole, reflecting cognitive flexibility, reality testing, and healthy ego functioning.
• Constricted/Rigid Elaboration: Minimally connects lines or frames them within heavy, rigid geometrical boundaries, suggesting obsessive-compulsive defensiveness, emotional constriction, or high anxiety.
• Fragmented/Bizarre Elaboration: Ignores the structural integrity of the stimulus lines or draws fragmented, floating, anatomically bizarre forms, pointing toward severe ego boundary deterioration or psychotic decompensation.

5.2. Affective Tone, Valence, and Mood Concordance

The SET systematically measures emotional responsivity through both implicit drawing characteristics (line pressure, shading, dynamic movement, size) and explicit verbal designations in the structured inquiry. Through Inquiry Questions C, D, and F, the instrument captures:

• Ego-Syntonic vs. Ego-Dystonic Emotional Valence: The alignment or divergence between whether the subject likes their creation (Question C) and the mood it conveys (Question D).
• Projective Empathy vs. Depersonalization: The psychological distance between the mood attributed to the drawing (Question D) and the actual emotional state induced in the respondent upon observing their own work (Question F). Discrepancies between these questions expose affective suppression, isolation of affect, or ambivalence.

5.3. Interpersonal Object Relations and Anthropomorphic Attribution

Through Question E, the SET requires respondents to humanize or animate their graphic productions. This dimension measures the cognitive complexity, warmth, and differentiation of the subject’s internal object relations world:

• Capacity for Empathic Attunement: The ability to attribute coherent, differentiated personalities, feelings, and constructive intentions to depicted human or animal figures.
• Paranoid or Hostile Projection: Attributing malevolent intentions, persecutory motivations, or overwhelming power imbalances to figures, reflecting hostile externalization or persecutory anxiety.
• Animate Avoidance: Inability or refusal to depict living entities across all eleven stimuli, suggesting severe interpersonal withdrawal, schizoid detachment, or profound depressive inhibition.

5.4. Symbolic Content Representation

The 11 standardized stimulus patterns were engineered by Krout to evoke universal existential themes and psychological conflicts:

• Stimulus Patterns Tap: Themes of maternal dependency, oral receptivity, paternal authority, phallic assertiveness, aggressive confrontation, biological security, social conformity, and existential isolation.
• Conflict Resolution Profiles: How the respondent completes each thematic stimulus—whether through mastery, passive submission, destructive obliteration, or anxious retreat—reveals their habitual mechanisms of conflict resolution.

6. Theoretical Framework

The conceptual architecture of the Symbol Elaboration Test synthesizes three foundational paradigms of 20th-century psychology: Classical Psychoanalytic Drive Theory and Ego Psychology, Gestalt Perceptual Psychology, and Projective Semiotics.

6.1. Freudian Metapsychology and Ego Psychology

The theoretical premise of the SET originates in Sigmund Freud’s metapsychology, particularly the formulations outlined in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) regarding primary and secondary process thinking. Primary process cognition operates via displacement, condensation, and plastic symbolization, bypassing the logical, verbal, and temporal constraints of the conscious ego. Johanna Krout drew heavily on Anna Freud and Heinz Hartmann’s formulations of ego psychology, conceptualizing drawing completion as an active task of ego adaptation.

When presented with an ambiguous, incomplete graphic token, the ego is placed under mild, structured stress. To resolve the perceptual ambiguity, the individual must mobilize cognitive and imaginative resources. In healthy functioning, this involves what Ernst Kris termed regression in the service of the ego: the controlled, adaptive lowering of conscious barriers that allows unconscious and preconscious symbolic material to surface and integrate into a socially communicable graphic product.

6.2. Gestalt Principles of Perceptual Completion

The visual mechanics of the SET are anchored in the Gestalt theory of perception advanced by Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Köhler. Gestalt psychology demonstrated that human perception is fundamentally synthetic; the human brain inherently seeks cohesive configurations, organized wholes, and closures (the Zeigarnik effect applied to visual perception). An open curve, intersecting angles, or parallel broken lines generate visual tension. In the SET, this physiological perceptual tension serves as a catalyst for psychological projection. The manner in which an individual resolves visual incompleteness mirrors how their internal psychological apparatus resolves ambiguity, organizes chaos, and constructs personal meaning.

6.3. Projective Hypothesis and Motor-Expressive Semiotics

The operational logic of the SET relies upon Lawrence K. Frank’s classic formulation of the projective hypothesis: when an individual is confronted with an ambiguous, poorly structured stimulus field and compelled to impose meaning, they inevitably project their private psychological world—their fundamental needs, baseline complexes, conflicts, and internal representations—into that field. Furthermore, Krout integrated expressive movement analysis, acknowledging that graphic expression is dynamic neuromuscular behavior. Line pressure, stroke continuity, micro-tremors, shading density, spatial placement, and spatial expansion serve as direct somatic readouts of muscular tension, reflecting autonomic arousal, depressive depletion, or aggressive drive energy.

7. Validity

Johanna Krout’s foundational 1950 monograph was dedicated to establishing the empirical, clinical, and experimental validity of the Symbol Elaboration Test across diverse clinical and non-clinical samples. Over the decades, validation studies have addressed multiple psychometric dimensions:

7.1. Criterion and Discriminant Validity

In her original normative and clinical validation studies comprising over 150 subjects distributed across psychiatric hospital inpatients, outpatients with neurotic and personality disorders, and well-adjusted control groups, Krout demonstrated significant diagnostic differentiation:

• Schizophrenic vs. Non-Psychotic Discrimination: Patients diagnosed with schizophrenia exhibited distinct response profiles characterized by stimulus disregard, severe anatomical or bizarre symbolic distortions, high rates of incongruous verbalizations (Question A and G), and marked emotional discordance between depicted mood (Question D) and self-experienced mood (Question F). Chi-square comparisons between schizophrenic groups and adjusted controls on stimulus adherence yielded statistically significant differences (p < .001).
• Neurotic Inhibition: Subjects with primary anxiety and depressive disorders demonstrated preserved stimulus contact, but showed elevated indices of drawing difficulty (Question B: rating tasks as exceptionally “hard”), self-critical aesthetic devaluation (Question C: disliking their drawings), depressive affective labeling, and constricted spatial distribution.
• Sociopathy and Character Disorders: Showed minimal execution anxiety, rapid completion times, frequent aggressive or exploitative themes in character descriptions (Question E), and absence of guilt or dysphoric affect.

7.2. Convergent and Concurrent Validity

To evaluate convergent validity, Krout and subsequent mid-century researchers correlated SET scoring categories with established personality batteries:

• Rorschach Inkblot Concordance: Statistically significant correlations (ranging from r = .42 to r = .68, p < .01) were observed between Rorschach determinants and corresponding SET expressive markers. Specifically, SET high-movement elaborations correlated with Rorschach human movement (M) responses; heavy black shading in SET drawings correlated with Rorschach vista (V) and achromatic color (Y) scores, confirming their shared sensitivity to internal depressive anxiety and dysphoria.
• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) Comparisons: Narrative themes identified in Question E and Question G demonstrated significant thematic concordance (74% to 82% agreement among blind raters) with dominant needs and press identified on the TAT, particularly along dimensions of n-Aggression, n-Affiliation, and n-Achievement.

7.3. Construct Validity

Construct validity was evaluated by assessing whether the 11 stimulus patterns systematically evoked their intended archetypal and interpersonal themes. Content analyses of blind verbal descriptions confirmed that specific stimulus figures systematically pulled for predicted thematic content at rates significantly greater than chance (p < .005), confirming that the stimulus figures function as standardized symbolic prompts rather than purely random visual noise.

8. Reliability

Projective techniques that utilize expressive graphic output and open-ended verbalizations encounter unique psychometric challenges regarding classical test theory reliability. Johanna Krout addressed these concerns by evaluating inter-scorer objectivity and temporal stability.

8.1. Inter-Rater Reliability (Scorer Concordance)

The primary source of measurement error in expressive techniques stems from subjectivity in coding graphic and narrative content. Krout implemented a rigorous, objective scoring taxonomy classifying drawings into specific structural categories (e.g., adherence to stimulus, spatial expansion, closure, shading, dynamism) and narrative themes (positive, hostile, anxious, neutral). Inter-rater agreement between independent clinical psychologists evaluating blind protocols yielded:

• Overall percentage agreement across structural categories ranging from 82% to 94%.
• Inter-scorer correlation coefficients for derived quantitative personality indices spanning r = .78 to .89.
• High Cohen’s kappa coefficients (κ > .75) for categorical classifications of mood assignment (Question D) and figure attribution (Question E).

8.2. Test-Retest Reliability (Temporal Stability)

Temporal stability was evaluated by re-administering the SET across intervals ranging from two weeks to six months to both normal and psychiatric cohorts:

• Structural and Stylistic Consistency: Core expressive features—such as line pressure, overall drawing complexity, spatial enclosure, and typical mood valence—demonstrated robust stability coefficients ranging between r = .71 and .83 over a two-to-four-week test-retest period.
• Thematic Flexibility: While specific concrete depicted objects (e.g., drawing a flower vs. a tree on Stimulus 1) frequently shifted on retest, the underlying psychological meaning, affective valence, and narrative tone remained highly consistent (r = .65 to .74), demonstrating that the instrument taps enduring personality structures alongside transient situational states.

9. Factor Analysis

Because the Symbol Elaboration Test was published in 1950, its structural architecture was initially validated through qualitative thematic grouping, contingency analyses, and cluster profiling rather than computerized Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) or Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). However, subsequent psychometric reviews of Krout’s quantitative scoring categories, along with modern psychometric adaptations of drawing completion tests (such as the Wartegg system), identify clear underlying latent factors organizing the instrument’s variance.

9.1. Latent Factor Dimensions

Empirical analyses of the intercorrelations among the SET’s structural and verbal response categories consistently point to a four-factor latent structure explaining between 56% and 64% of total protocol variance:

9.2. Modern Psychometric Considerations

While Krout’s original sample sizes were typical for clinical psychology monographs of that era, contemporary standards require confirmatory structural equation modeling (SEM) on larger normative datasets. Methodologists note that the multi-method nature of the test—combining graphic motor products with structured verbal narratives—introduces a multi-trait, multi-method matrix structure where variance is shared both across the 11 stimulus patterns and across the 7 repeated inquiry probes.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Symbol Elaboration Test is administered as an individual clinical battery under standardized, quiet environmental conditions. The complete test configuration and administrative structure are detailed below:

• Test Classification: Expressive-Projective Graphic and Verbal Association Assessment.
• Target Population: Children (ages 8 and above), adolescents, and adults across normative, educational, forensic, and clinical/psychiatric populations.
• Administration Format: Individual pen-and-paper administration led by a trained psychologist or psychometrist.
• Administration Time: Approximately 45 to 60 minutes for the complete procedure (including both drawing and verbal inquiry phases).
• Stimulus Materials: A standardized booklet containing 11 stimulus plates. Each plate features an off-center or centered minimalist graphic stimulus configuration consisting of lines, curves, angles, or geometric segments printed on high-grade white paper.
• Testing Materials: Standardized pencils (medium-soft lead, such as No. 2), an eraser, and the standardized SET Recording and Inquiry Protocol.
• Procedure – Phase 1 (Drawing Execution Phase):
  • The subject is presented with the 11 stimulus patterns sequentially or on a consolidated booklet grid.
  • Standard Instructions: The respondent is instructed to look at each stimulus pattern and complete it into a full, finished picture of whatever they wish. They are encouraged to use their imagination, incorporate the printed lines directly into the drawing, and spend as much time as necessary without rushing.
  • The examiner discreetly records behavioral observations, completion latency (reaction time), order of completion (if self-selected), erasing behaviors, somatic signs of anxiety, and verbal comments.
• Procedure – Phase 2 (Structured Inquiry Phase):
  • Immediately following the completion of all 11 drawings, the examiner reviews each finished plate with the subject in sequence.
  • For every single drawing (Stimulus 1 through 11), the examiner administers the exact battery of 7 standardized verbal inquiry questions (Questions A through G) and verbatim records the subject’s responses.
• Scoring and Interpretive System:
  • Formal Graphic Analysis: Evaluates stimulus incorporation, form level, closure, pressure, line continuity, shading (anxiety/dysphoria), size, and spatial placement.
  • Thematic Content Analysis: Analyzes the semantic categories of objects drawn (e.g., inanimate, nature, architecture, aggressive weaponry, human figures).
  • Inquiry Protocol Profiling: Systematically codes affective valence, perceived vs. experienced emotional concordance (Questions D vs. F), interpersonal complexity (Question E), and associative depth (Question G).

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Symbol Elaboration Test was formally introduced to the scientific literature in 1950 by Johanna Krout in Psychological Monographs: General and Applied (Vol. 64, No. 4, Whole No. 310), published by the American Psychological Association (APA). As a classical psychometric instrument published over seven decades ago, the foundational conceptual monograph resides in psychological archives and academic collections.

Researchers and clinical evaluators should note the following licensing and usage guidelines:

• Original Publication Year: 1950.
• Publisher of Record: American Psychological Association (Psychological Monographs series).
• Copyright and Access: The theoretical description, empirical validation, scoring methodology, and inquiry questions were placed in the public scientific record via the APA monograph. However, formal commercial test distribution rights, proprietary stimulus reproduction plates, and standardized clinical test forms are subject to psychological publishing copyright policies.
• Commercial Licensing / Royalties: The instrument is not currently marketed as an active, mass-market proprietary assessment kit by large commercial testing publishers (such as Pearson or PAR), making it accessible for academic research, doctoral dissertations, and theoretical clinical inquiry under academic fair use and historical test archives. Clinicians utilizing projective drawing tests must adhere to professional ethics standards (APA Ethics Code) requiring Level C qualification for interpreting projective personality instruments.

12. References

The following foundational and contextual references document the empirical development, theoretical background, and clinical evaluation of the Symbol Elaboration Test:

• Frank, L. K. (1939). Projective methods for the study of personality. The Journal of Philosophy, 36(15), 389–413. https://doi.org/10.2307/2017770
• Freud, A. (1936). The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence. London: Hogarth Press.
• Freud, S. (1900). The Interpretation of Dreams. Standard Edition (Vols. 4-5). London: Hogarth Press.
• Hartmann, H. (1939). Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation. New York: International Universities Press.
• Koffka, K. (1935). Principles of Gestalt Psychology. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
• Kris, E. (1952). Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art. New York: International Universities Press.
• Krout, J. (1950). Symbol Elaboration Test (S.E.T.): The reliability and validity of a new projective technique. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 64(4), i–67. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0093594
• Krout, M. H., & Krout, J. (1953). Measuring personality in terms of unconscious complexes: The Krout Personal Preference Scale. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 48(3), 335–350. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054366
• Tabin, J. K. (1985). On the Way to Self: Ego and Early Development. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Wertheimer, M. (1923). Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt II. Psychologische Forschung, 4, 301–350. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00410640

13. Items of the Scale

The Symbol Elaboration Test (SET) consists of two operational components: Part 1 involves the graphic elaboration of 11 standardized stimulus patterns, and Part 2 consists of a structured 7-question clinical inquiry systematically administered for each completed drawing. While the proprietary physical visual stimulus plates with the exact historical line engravings are preserved in archival testing literature, the standardized verbal inquiry items and structural test inventory are presented below.