Sentence Completion Test

The Sentence Completion Test: A Window into Unconscious Motives

The Sentence Completion Test is a projective technique that uses incomplete sentences as its core tool. Unlike the Rorschach or TAT, which use ambiguous images, this test presents the subject with the beginning of a sentence — a stem — and asks them to finish it in whatever way comes to mind. The test is built on a simple but powerful assumption: the endings people supply are not random. They are shaped by the person's own attitudes, motivations, and conflicts, many of which lie outside their conscious awareness.

Because the test offers many such stems, it gives the subject repeated opportunities to reveal these underlying, often unconscious, psychological forces. The more stems a person completes, the more patterns emerge in their responses, allowing a trained interpreter to identify recurring themes — for example, a persistent fear of failure, a deep need for approval, or unresolved anger toward a parent.

How It Works: Sample Items

The textbook provides four sample items that illustrate the format. Each stem is deliberately short and open-ended, inviting the subject to project their inner world onto the completion.

1. My father 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