Rorschach Blots: The Wikipedia Cheat Sheet?

Psychologists are angry.  Perhaps they should talk to a psychologist.  Oh, wait.

Yes, psychologists are fuming that the standard 10-Rorschach-Blots test has been posted to Wikipedia.  To them, it’s as though someone posted the answers to next year’s SAT, according to the New York Times.

It’s all perfectly legal, however, as the Rorschach Blots test was created almost 90 years ago, so they have lost their copyright protection here in the U.S.

Psychologists have created accounts at Wikipedia for the sole purpose of arguing that the website is basically voiding one of the oldest psychological assessments known to man.

The Rorschach Blots have, in fact, shown up on other sites, but it wasn’t until they showed up on Wikipedia that psychologists took notice.

“The more test materials are promulgated widely, the more possibility there is to game it,” said Bruce L. Smith, a psychologist and president of the International Society of the Rorschach and Projective Methods, who has posted under the user name SPAdoc. He quickly adds that he didn’t mean that a coached subject could fool the person giving the test into making the wrong diagnosis, but rather simply “render the results meaningless.”

So what do you think?  Does it matter that the Rorschach Blots have been posted to Wikipedia?

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