Sacks Sentence Completion Test

Abstract

The Sacks Sentence Completion Test (SSCT), documented here as a 1961 instrument, is a widely recognized psychological tool consisting of 50 partly completed sentences. It is specifically designed to assess various aspects of an individual’s personality structure and tendencies. This particular archived version is included in collaboration with the University of Akron, Archives of the History of American Psychology. The test operates as a projective test, providing respondents the opportunity to complete the sentence stems, thereby reflecting their personal characteristics, attitudes toward family, and core conflicts.

The responses elicited are analyzed qualitatively to understand the subject’s underlying feelings and emotional adjustments across key areas of life, making it a valuable instrument in clinical and counseling settings for gaining deep insight into subjective experience.

Keywords

Sacks Sentence Completion Test, Personality Traits, Projective Technique, Sentence Completion Tests, History of Psychology, Personality Measures, Clinical Assessment.

Authors

Although the instrument is historically attributed to Joseph M. Sacks and Sidney Levy (1950), the specific source documentation for this archived version indicates No authorship indicated.

Purpose

The fundamental purpose of the Sacks Sentence Completion Test is to serve as an indirect, structured method for the measurement and assessment of fundamental personality traits and underlying emotional dynamics.

It is utilized by clinicians to systematically explore the respondent’s attitudes and conflicts across several critical domains, including the self-concept, the family unit (attitudes toward mother and father), sexual adjustment, and interpersonal relationships. The spontaneous nature of the completions is intended to minimize defensiveness and yield highly personal material.

Construct

The primary psychological construct targeted by the SSCT is Personality Traits, with a specific focus on areas of potential maladjustment or conflict. The test items are structured to probe twelve distinct areas of emotional adjustment, which are subsequently synthesized into a comprehensive picture of the individual’s personality structure.

These measured traits are generally interpreted within a dynamic framework, focusing on how the individual perceives authority, the future, their past experiences, and their core social environment.

Validity

The source documentation for this specific archival entry indicates that No validity information is provided.

It is important to note that, as a projective test, the SSCT’s validity is often assessed through clinical utility and qualitative analysis rather than traditional statistical methods. Subsequent research literature external to this archive has explored various forms of content and construct validity, though rigorous psychometric validation remains a complex challenge for this class of instrument.

Reliability

The source documentation for this specific archival entry indicates that No reliability information is provided.

Reliability concerns for sentence completion tests typically revolve around inter-rater reliability, given the subjective nature of scoring and interpretation. Consistency in interpreting the qualitative responses is crucial for ensuring the reliability of any clinical findings derived from the SSCT.

Factor Analysis

The source documentation indicates that No factor analysis is provided for this version of the scale.

Due to its design as a holistic projective test intended for in-depth individual assessment rather than broad factor structure identification, standard factor analysis is not typically the primary method of validation for the SSCT.

Instrument

Test Type: Test (Specifically, a Projective Sentence Completion Instrument)

Format: 50 incomplete sentence stems

Language Available: English (Original)

Population Group: Human

Age Group: Not specified, typically used with adolescents and adults capable of written response.

Population Details: General human population seeking assessment of personality and adjustment.

Test Methodology: Test Development, utilizing standardized stimuli to elicit unstructured, spontaneous responses reflective of personality dynamics.

Keywords

Personality Measures, History of Psychology, Sentence Completion Tests, Clinical Assessment, Family Dynamics, Self-Concept.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not provided.

Correspondence Address: Not provided (Archived material held by the University of Akron, Archives of the History of American Psychology).

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The permissions granted for this archived material stipulate that it May use for Research/Teaching purposes. No fee structure is indicated in the source. The test year associated with this specific document is 1961.

Reference’s

No formal reference was provided in the source documentation for this archived entry.

Items of the Sacks Sentence Completion Test

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

1. I feel that my father seldom
2. When the odds are against me
3. I always wanted to
4. If I were in charge
5. To me the future looks
6. The people over me
7. I know it is silly but I am afraid of
8. I feel that a real friend
9. When I was a child
10. My idea of a perfect woman
11. When I see a man and a woman together
12. Compared with most families, mine
13. At work, I get along best with
14. My mother
15. I would do anything to forget the time I
16. If my father would only
17. I believe that I have the ability to
18. I could be perfectly happy if
19. I look forward to
20. In school, my teachers
21. Most of my friends don’t know that I am afraid of
22. I don’t like people who
23. I think most girls
24. My feeling about married life is
25. My family treats me like
26. My mother and I
27. My greatest mistake was
28. I wish my father
29. My greatest weakness is
30. My secret ambition in life
31. Some day I
32. I wish I could lose the fear of
33. The people I like best
34. I believe most women
35. Most families I know
36. I think that most mothers
37. When I was younger, I felt guilty about
38. I feel that my father is
39. When luck turns against me
40. What I want most out of life
41. When I am older
42. People whom I consider my superiors
43. My fears sometimes force me to
44. When I’m not around, my friends
45. My most vivid childhood memory
46. What I like least about women
47. My sex life
48. When I was a child, my family
49. I like my mother but
50. The worst thing I ever did