08-09-2021, 08:35 PM
There is a regrettable tendency to take Tippit's one known formal personality evaluation at face value. This is the Rorschach Test conducted by H. M. Chapman on 11/17/52 when Tippit joined the police force. Whether he was taciturn by nature or advised to say little is moot, but this is surely a wise course to follow when coming under the scrutiny of a shrink. Chapman must have been irked by the lack of verbal engagement, declaring, "This man appears to be devoid of any imaginative faculties."
But Chapman's imagination was working overtime, eventually catching Tippit in a major faux pas. During the touchy-feely portion of the procedure he twice held cards by the edges!
On two occasions he resorted to edging while handling the cards. This is a very unhealthy sign.
A rundown of the edging issue on the web turned up nothing on this point, but produced the startling information that as early as 1959 a big time shrink proclaimed, "The test has repeatedly failed as a prediction of practical criteria. There is nothing in the literature to encourage reliance on Rorschach interpretations."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test
Read the rest of the article for a barrelful of laughs. Particularly a propos is the section on test projection. We now see that Chapman was thinking of himself when he concluded, "Errors of judgment can be expected."
In short, forget about edging, it's an invalid test in its entirety.
So what little we thought we knew about Tippit just got smaller. He certainly made an error when he got gunned down upon exiting his prowl car, but he probably had reason to believe his killer was harmless. He was also decoyed by someone else standing across Tenth Street, about where Benavides parked his pickup when he arrived five or ten minutes later.
But Chapman's imagination was working overtime, eventually catching Tippit in a major faux pas. During the touchy-feely portion of the procedure he twice held cards by the edges!
On two occasions he resorted to edging while handling the cards. This is a very unhealthy sign.
A rundown of the edging issue on the web turned up nothing on this point, but produced the startling information that as early as 1959 a big time shrink proclaimed, "The test has repeatedly failed as a prediction of practical criteria. There is nothing in the literature to encourage reliance on Rorschach interpretations."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test
Read the rest of the article for a barrelful of laughs. Particularly a propos is the section on test projection. We now see that Chapman was thinking of himself when he concluded, "Errors of judgment can be expected."
In short, forget about edging, it's an invalid test in its entirety.
So what little we thought we knew about Tippit just got smaller. He certainly made an error when he got gunned down upon exiting his prowl car, but he probably had reason to believe his killer was harmless. He was also decoyed by someone else standing across Tenth Street, about where Benavides parked his pickup when he arrived five or ten minutes later.