Why did you look at me like that?

Why did you make that face?

Why did you use that tone?

If you’ve asked any of the previous questions then you might be playing emotional Rorschach. There might not have been a face, a look or a tone and there’s a chance you misinterpreted what you heard or saw.

The Rorschach test, also a known as the inkblot test is a projective psychological test that was created in 1921. It was designed to test an individual’s perceptions of inkblots on a piece of paper. The key word in the description of the test is ‘projective.’

“The underlying assumption is that an individual will class external stimuli based on person-specific perceptual sets, and including needs, base motives, conflicts, and that this clustering process is representative of the process used in real-life situations.”

Essentially what is said is that you will see and experience situations based on your own personal history. You will, for lack of a better word, project and then ultimately derive meaning from a situation based on your past. So there is a chance that you read the situation incorrectly.

Maybe the look meant nothing. Maybe there was no underlying agenda. It could just be in your mind.

Now obviously, like so much in life, there’s a lot of grey area and you’re probably not always mistaken when assessing a situation. But what if sometimes you are?

Holding back judgement or giving an individual the benefit of the doubt is a great way to prevent jumping to conclusions about what someone did or said towards you.

One of the interesting things researchers found when administering the test is that cultural backgrounds and prior experiences influenced what people saw in the inkblots. And since we all have some unique aspects to our individual experiences and history, it means that we all experience the world differently.

So the next time you find yourself wondering what someone meant by the look on their face or something they said that’s got you a little flustered, think about the emotional Rorschach. It might a combination of your imagination and projection leading you to a false conclusion.

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