How accurate is the draw a person test?

[justine378]

Hello, everyone. I've looked everywhere on the internet but couldn't find any specific answer so i'm hoping someone here may help me. How accurate is the Draw a Person test with adults? I did one last week and was asked to draw a man. However, i didn't draw one on the top of my head, i drew a man that ACTUALLY exists, a real one. I was wondering if this can mess up the results.

[saraw65]

I google searched draw a person test.
Here are only 2 of the many links I found.
Apparently, according to what I read, people drawing is used mainly on children and adolescents.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3597590/

https://janaenahirney.wordpress.com/2015/10/28/the-draw-a-person-personality-test/

[Paxiled]

Someone else is going to have to do this one, never heard of this test, but  just curious -- what can drawing a person tell you?  I couldn't draw a straight line to save my life, let alone draw a person.

[justine378]

Apparently it can show personality traits, some underlying problems you may have and how smart you are (this last one apparently works better with kids) and trust me, all i wanted to do was draw a stick man, drawing a person is hard lol. They also ask you to draw a house and a tree.

[Paxiled]

My opinion of most tests like this is that they are bogus.  The science behind them is based on statistics, but statistics are a tool, not facts.  Take IQ tests -- there isn't actually a test that can measure IQ.  Intelligence is the ability to learn, not what you have learned, but how can you design a test to tell you that?  After all, the people designing the tests can only ask questions reflecting their experiences and what they have learned, not what they are able to learn.  Better to just assume most people without some disease that we know affects learning ability can learn but might be choosing not to at the time the test is given.  That's why we have late bloomers -- some get their motivation to learn late.  A lot of work with children has been shown to be biased when other scientists attempt to repeat the experiments, making this a very controversial field.  I wouldn't read too much into this kind of test.