The Use of Self-Report Data in Psychology

When psychologists and researchers want to learn more about what people are thinking, feeling, doing, or experiencing, they often go straight to the source. In other words, sometimes just *asking* people about their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors is the best way to collect information about what’s happening with an individual or group of people.

This process is called self-reporting, aka self-report data, and serves as a valuable source of information about mental health and behavior.

Self-reporting is commonly used in psychological studies because it can yield valuable diagnostic information for researchers or clinicians.

Keep reading to explore some examples of how self-report data is used in psychology, as well as some of this approach’s key advantages and disadvantages.

Examples of Self-Reporting in Psychology

Whether information is collected via interviews, questionnaires, or surveys, self-reporting allows researchers to learn a great deal about everything from personality traits to mental health to real-world behavior.

To understand how self-reports are used in psychology, it can be helpful to look at some specific examples. The following are just a few well-known assessments and inventories rely on self-reporting to collect data.

The MMPI

One of the most commonly used self-report tools is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) for personality testing. This inventory includes more than 500 questions focused on different areas, including behaviors, psychological health, interpersonal relationships, and attitudes.

The 16 Personality Factor (PF) Questionnaire

The 16PF Questionnaire was developed by psychologist Raymond Cattell and based on his theory suggesting that 16 main traits make up human personality. This personality inventory is often used as a diagnostic tool to help therapists plan treatment. It can be used to learn more about various individual characteristics, including empathy, openness, attitudes, attachment quality, and coping style.

The 16PF Questionnaire is frequently used in career counseling, employee testing, and marital counseling. Research supports the test’s validity for use in both personality assessment and career development.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

The MBTI is a popular personality measure that describes personality types in four categories: introversion or extraversion, sensing or intuiting, thinking or feeling, and judging or perceiving. A letter is taken from each category to describe a person’s personality type, such as INTP or ESFJ.

Self-Reporting Has Several Advantages

Self-reporting is popular for many reasons, including because it is so convenient. It’s also often the *only* way to collect data about highly subjective or personal experiences.

• Easy to use: One of the primary advantages of self-reporting is that it can be easy to obtain.
• Useful in clinical settings: For clinicians, self-reporting is an effective way to learn more about clients and diagnose their conditions.
• Familiar: Most of us have at least some experience with filling out inventories that ask questions about our behaviors, opinions, or thoughts. In other words, there’s not a big learning curve, making collecting the data much more straightforward.

Self-reporting also has some significant advantages in research settings. This type of data collection is inexpensive. It allows researchers to reach out to more participants than they could even analyze through naturalistic observation or other methods.

Self-reporting can be performed relatively quickly, so a researcher can obtain results in days or weeks rather than observing a population for a longer time frame.

Self-Reporting Also Has Some Disadvantages

While self-reporting has many key benefits, this method has flaws and limitations. People sometimes misreport data due to a desire to seem more socially desirable or because they don’t exactly remember the specifics of their own behaviors.

There’s also the fact that people often don’t know themselves as well as they think they do, which makes it hard to self-report with complete accuracy.

Self-reports are subject to these biases and limitations:

• Honesty: Subjects may make the more socially acceptable answer rather than being truthful.
• Introspective ability: The subjects may not be able to assess themselves accurately.
• Interpretation of questions: The wording of the questions may be confusing or have different meanings to different subjects.
• Rating scales: Rating something yes or no can be too restrictive, but numerical scales also can be inexact and subject to individual inclination to give an extreme or middle response to all questions.
• Response bias: Questions are subject to all of the biases of what the previous responses were, whether they relate to recent or significant experience and other factors.
• Sampling bias: The people who complete the questionnaire are the sort of people who will complete a questionnaire. Are they representative of the population you wish to study?

Combining Self-Reporting With Other Data

Most experts in psychological research and diagnosis suggest that self-report data should not be used alone, as it tends to be biased. Research is best done when combining self-reporting with other information, such as an individual’s behavior or physiological data.

The questionnaires used in research should be checked to see if they produce consistent results over time. They also should be validated by another data method demonstrating that responses measure what they claim they measure. Questionnaires and responses should be easy to discriminate between controls and the test group.

Tips for Using Self-Reporting in Research

If you are creating a self-report tool for psychology research, there are a few key steps you should follow.

• Decide what type of data you want to collect: This will determine the format of your questions and the type of scale you use. 
• Create a pool of clear and concise questions: The goal is to have several items that cover all the topics you wish to address.
• Use clear and specific questions: Avoid using vague or leading questions that might confuse participants and affect the usefulness of their responses.
• Ensure anonymity and confidentiality: Establish procedures to ensure responses are private and secure. Participants may be more honest if they feel they will not be judged for sharing their true behavior or feelings. This may help reduce the impact of the social desirability bias.
• Account for memory limitations: It’s normal for people to forget details or misremember events, particularly for things that happened some time ago. Try to account for this by sticking to events in the recent past.
• Pilot your study: Use your self-reporting instrument with a small group to ensure validity and reliability before using it with a larger group.

Takeaways

Self-reporting can be a useful tool for collecting data. The benefits of self-report data include lower costs and the ability to collect data from a large number of people. However, self-report data can also be biased and prone to errors. If you are thinking about using self-reporting in your own research, weight the pros and cons and consider implementing it alongside other data collection tools for a more balanced approach.