Cultural Differences in the Emotional Indicators of the Two-People Drawing Test

Abstract

The study aims to identify differences in the emotional indicators attributable to cultural variables in the Two Human Figures Test (T2F) of Maganto and Garaigordobil (2009) and to obtain standards of the test for the Indian Yaqui children (Mexico). A representative sample of 654 children aged 5–11 years was used. We conducted a validation study of the emotional items for this sample that met the three criteria established by the authors: (1) they distinguish between clinical and nonclinical groups, (2) they are not developmental, and (3) they have a low frequency (less than 10%). The results show large differences in the presence of emotional indicators between this sample and the original Spanish group used to construct the T2F. Only six of the 35 emotional indicators found in the Spanish sample are valid for this representative sample of Yaqui children. Possible causes of this discrepancy are discussed.