Critical review of the TEMAS: A step within the development of thematic apperception instruments

Clinical Assessment of Child and Adolescent Personality and Behavior

“…Also, unique to the teMAS are separate norms for Caucasian, African-American, Puerto Rican, and other Hispanic children across three age groups (5-7, 8-10, 11-13). However, these norms are based on a rather limited sample (n = 642) of children from public schools in New York City (see Flanagan & DiGiuseppe, 1999).…”

Ethnopsychological Method and the Psychological Assessment of Mexican Americans

“…TEMAS (meaning themes in Spanish) is a thematic apperception tool constructed specifically for multicultural subjects (Costantino, Flanagan, & Malgady, 2001;Costantino & Malgady, 1999Costantino, Malgady, Casullo, & Castillo, 1991;Costantino, Malgady, Colon-Malgady, & Bailey, 1993;Costantino, Malgady, & Vazquez, 1981;Flanagan & di Guiseppi, 1999;Malgady, Costantino, & Rogler, 1985). TEMAS (meaning themes in Spanish) is a thematic apperception tool constructed specifically for multicultural subjects (Costantino, Flanagan, & Malgady, 2001;Costantino & Malgady, 1999Costantino, Malgady, Casullo, & Castillo, 1991;Costantino, Malgady, Colon-Malgady, & Bailey, 1993;Costantino, Malgady, & Vazquez, 1981;Flanagan & di Guiseppi, 1999;Malgady, Costantino, & Rogler, 1985).…”

“…In addition to criterion-based personality measures, other tools such as TEMAS and the Hispanic Stress Inventory have emerged, which borrow items and constructs from previous instruments but allow for a more appropriate cultural context. TEMAS (meaning themes in Spanish) is a thematic apperception tool constructed specifically for multicultural subjects (Costantino, Flanagan, & Malgady, 2001;Costantino & Malgady, 1999Costantino, Malgady, Casullo, & Castillo, 1991;Costantino, Malgady, Colon-Malgady, & Bailey, 1993;Costantino, Malgady, & Vazquez, 1981;Flanagan & di Guiseppi, 1999;Malgady, Costantino, & Rogler, 1985). The test itself is similar to the original thematic apperception test (TAT) stimuli, in which one or several persons are depicted in different situations/environments and the subject is expected to develop a story about the stimulus card.…”

“…Additionally, children are allowed to give responses in either Spanish or English to this test. Initial standardization and norming studies of TEMAS indicated that this test shows increased verbalization and response scores with children of color as compared to the traditional TAT (Costantino & Malgady, 1983;Costantino et al, 1981;Flanagan & di Guiseppi, 1999).…”

Objective and Projective Personality Assessment: The Temas and the Behavior Assessment System for Children, Self-Report of Personality

“…The purpose of this paper is to present work in progress, which suggests that the TEMAS (acronym for Tell-Me-A-Story, meaning themes in Spanish) (Costantino, Malgady, & Rogler, 1988), a thematic apperception test, and the Behavior Assessment System for Children, Self-report of Personality (Reynolds & Karnphaus, 1992) may be complementary. In the opinion of reviewers (Flanagan, 1995;Flanagan & Di Giuseppe, 1999;lbtzler, 1993;Sandoval & Echandla, 1994) both measures show promise for the evaluation of children.…”