So Why Ask Me? Are Self-Report Data Really That Bad?

The use of self-report data is widespread across diverse fields of empirical research such as organizational behavior, personality and individual differences, social psychology, and mental health. Despite the prevalent use of self-report data in empirical studies, there is a widespread belief among researchers that there are severe threats to its validity which serve to weaken the intended substantive inferences to be drawn from such data. Any researcher familiar with the journal review process could probably testify that one of the most common methodological criticisms of manuscripts under review tends to be associated with alleged problems concerning the use of self-report data. These criticisms are often…