title: The incremental validity of average state self-reports over global self-reports of personality.
abstract: Personality traits are most often assessed using global self-reports of one's general patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behavior. However, recent theories have challenged the idea that global self-reports are the best way to assess traits. Whole Trait Theory postulates that repeated measures of a person's self-reported personality states (i.e., the average of many state self-reports) can be an alternative and potentially superior way of measuring a person's trait level (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015). Our goal is to examine the validity of average state self-reports of personality for measuring between-person differences in what people are typically like. In order to validate average states as a measure of personality, we examine whether they are incrementally valid in predicting informant reports above and beyond global self-reports. In 2 samples, we find that average state self-reports tend to correlate with informant reports, although this relationship is weaker than the relationship between global self-reports and informant reports. Further, using structural equation modeling, we find that average state self-reports do not significantly predict informant reports independently of global self-reports. Our results suggest that average state self-reports may not contain information about between-person differences in personality traits beyond what is captured by global self-reports, and that average state self-reports may contain more self-bias than is commonly believed. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on daily manifestations of personality and the accuracy of self-reports. (PsycINFO Database Record
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology.
authors.forename: Katherine M
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-8986-3061
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Finnigan
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology.
authors.forename: Simine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vazire
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010551:Personality; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010554:Personality Disorders; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D057566:Self Report; D055815:Young Adult