Gender difference in affect of job applicants on completion of projective test battery for personality assessment in armed forces

BACKGROUND: Every test, whether academic or non-academic, induces an ‘affect’ in subjects and completion of it also produces an affect, may it be positive or negative. The projective tests are peculiar in their nature for the purpose of personality assessment and may also have a temporary or everlasting impact on the respondent's affect at the conscious level. This paper tries to investigate the affect of job applicants in armed forces on completion of projective tests. Studies have shown that women are perceived to express emotions more than men but that there were little differences in the perception of men and women's emotional experience. AIM: The aim of the study was to examine gender difference in the affect of 275 job applicants (110 male and 65 female) after completing the battery of projective tests for personality assessment in armed forces. MATERIALS AND METHODS: PANAS has been used for determining the positive affect (PA), which reflects the pleasurable engagement and subjective experience of happiness whereas the negative affect (NA) subscale measures the level of subjective distress and unpleased engagement. RESULTS: Female's average score (4.66) was greater than male (4.45) score on the ‘attentive’ dimension of positive affect. This difference was significant t (273) = - 2.08, P < 0.05. Male's average score (4.47) was greater than female (4.24) score on the ‘active’ dimension of positive affect. CONCLUSION: This difference was significant t (273) = 2.14, P < 0.05. Among the dimensions of the negative affect, none of them have significant difference between male and female.