RDE: Validity of Self-Report

Have students debate the usefulness of self-report measures.

One way of get students to think about the issue of the validity of self-report is to have them try some Implicit Association Tests. They find these fascinating. Most will find some discrepancy between their explicit attitudes and the results of the test. Some will explain the discrepancy in terms of their self-knowledge being imperfect, others will say the problem is with the test. To help students see the weaknesses of self-report--and how these weaknesses can be remedied--have students look at this table.

To get students to look at the self-report problem from a historical perspective, you could assign the following classics:

Ericcson, A. & Simon, H. A. (1980). Verbal reports as data.

Psychological Review, 87, 215-251.

Nisbett, R. E. & Wilson, T. D. (1977). Telling more than we can

know: Verbal reports on mental process. Psychological
Review, 84, 231-259.

Webb, E. J., Campbell, D. T., Schwartz, R. D., & Seechrist, L.

(1981). Unobtrusive measures: Nonreactive research in
the social sciences. Chicago: Rand McNally.

The following videos will also help students understand the limitations of self-report:

Malcolm Gladwell's presentation on how experimental data are different from and better than self-report data--and how this has changed what we eat.
A different Malcolm Gladwell presentation on questions raised about trusting self-report from furniture makers, from the Coke vs. Pepsi challenge, and from Timothy Wilson's work.
Dan Gilbert's presentation on how our predictions about how we will feel ("affective forecasting") are inaccurate.
Barry Schwartz's presentation on how we think more choices will make us happier but we are wrong--a phenomenon he calls the paradox of choice

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