Towards Scientific Apperception Tests for Twenty-first Century Social Sciences Research: Formulating ‘Structured Apperception Techniques for Socio-cultural Change’ in Twenty-first Century Soc

This paper takes forward the concepts and postulates of our two published papers on socio-cultural change to their logical conclusion, and seeks to put forward some new and novel techniques through which we believe the ideals of these two papers can be eminently realized. Another objective of this paper is to review the various types of already existing apperception tests such as the Thematic Apperception tests which try to assess the sub-conscious dynamics of a person’s personality, and projective tests which seek to reveal a person’s hidden emotions and internal conflicts as well. These tests are already in existence and are fairly widely used in fields as far apart as sociology, psychology and psychiatry, but we lay bare their inadequacies here and conclude that they are insufficient to meet the requirements of the present day, and of the post-globalized world. We therefore, also propose that these existing concepts and somewhat Eurocentric in their orientation, even if they were developed with the best of intentions, and some were even designed to satisfy the innate curiosities of Western researchers regarding other exotic and alien cultures, and to a certain extent, mold their perceptions of them, and fit them into their own archaic world views. We then propose an alternative approach keeping the core ideals of apperception tests and projective tests intact, while molding it to suit our requirements, and without diluting our singular objective of ushering in socio-cultural change across cultures and societies.