Reliability-Validity

Reliability and validity in measuring personality traits

A. Choose one of the three methods of personality assessment listed below and indicate what factors might limit its reliability and validity.

B. If you had to argue for the superiority of one of these methods over the others, which one would you choose and why?

1. self reports from the persons being assessed

2. reports from close friends and relatives of the person being assessed

3. observations of the person being assessed by a trained observer.

Getting reports from the person being assessed is the main method on how researches study personality but for some cases this approach may lack introspective ability to individuals when assessing themselves especially their personality or behaviour. In this approach, an individual can make a report on what they believe the personality they have but this report may not be accurate. For example, they may present themselves different from what they are reporting or may positively say that they have this personality that will make themselves act in accordance to the personality they gave. Likewise, the reports from informants may also have biases and inconsistencies. The informant may report a trait by providing details of what personality the person has. The reports may contain judgemental remarks. This approach may have an advantage in comparison to self reports like the other person can fully observe the individual and can provide researches meaningful observations about someone's personality, however, the informants do not have power to fully understand and know the thoughts, feelings and actions of an individual. Since, studying personality traits relies on reliability and validity it is better to combine the results or findings on self reports, reports from informants and trained observer. In this way, researches can make comparisons and test whether the results are consistent, accurate and true.