Psychologists use projective tests in which they show ambiguous stimuli to people so they will "project" their underlying feelings, traits, and concerns onto the stimuli. The most well-know projective test is the Rorschach Test, which employs ink blots as the ambiguous stimuli. Another important projective test is the Thematic Apperception Test, which uses pictures of people in ambiguous situations. The psychologist asks the client to interpret the picture and in the process the client reveals aspects of her personality or problems.
Social psychologists often use attitude scales to measure people's propensities, such as empathy, belief in a just world and self-esteem, and views on a range of concepts, such as racial attitudes, gender attitudes or attitudes toward a particular concept, such as abortion. The distinguishing characteristic of attitude tests are the response scales, typically a Likert scale in which respondents answer on a five-point scale. Respondents are asked to indicate on the scale where their view falls from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
Confidentiality is maintained on major intelligence tests, so only persons qualified to administer them can obtain the questions. The Stanford-Binet Test and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children have questions designed for children of various ages. The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Test measures vocabulary, understanding and knowledge in the verbal section and requests respondents to arrange pictures in story form or duplicate a block pattern in the performance section.
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory is one of the most used personality inventories. This inventory has 567 statements such as, "I believe I am being plotted against" or "I am often very tense." The person taking the inventory is asked to respond either "true" or "false" to each statement. This inventory has 10 clinical scales that test for different behaviors that indicate mild personality problems (such as shyness) to serious disorders (such as schizophrenia). Other personality inventories are the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory and the California Psychological Inventory.