Strengths and limitations of projective testing

Some advantages of projective tests are that because there are no 'right' or 'wrong' answers and the purpose and scoring of the test is not obvious, individuals may be less likely to manipulate or fake the responses to the stimuli. Individuals are also not restricted in the responses they provide to the stimuli.

A further strength is the participants can provide as much or as little information as they choose, providing psychologists with a rich, personalised qualitative data about a person stated in their own words.

Finally, responses in projective tests can be used by a persons psychologists to discuss situations that could be causing difficulties for their client.

Some of the strengths of projective tests are also their limitations. Having no correct answers makes them difficult to interpret, the interpretation subjective and more prone to inaccuracies. Therefore, 2 independent psychologists assessing the same responses may provide different interpretations.
In addition, an individual may not be able to provide a response to particular stimulus.

It is assumed that an individual reveals information about their underlying personality when providing a response. This may or may not be the case, meaning the tests may not actually be testing what they intend to test and are therefore considered to have a relatively low validity.

Projective tests must be administered individually, therefor they're time-consuming and expensive and cannot be used simultaneously with large numbers of people