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Observer-Report Assessment of Personality and Individual Differences

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Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences

Introduction

In the course of the twentieth century, a range of guidelines and assumptions have developed regarding how best to assess cognitive (e.g., intellegence) and noncognitive (e.g., personality) individual differences. During that time, methods for the assessment of cognitive individual differences have diverged substantially from those for noncognitive individual differences, most notably personality and temperament. Yet early research by both Spearman (1904) and Webb (1915) used largely similar methods of data collection and analysis of cognitive and personality variables, respectively. Currently, cognitive measures are typically assessed using purposefully designed performance-based measures assessed by an independent observer, while personality assessments commonly rely upon self-assessments of accuracy of description or behavioral frequency.

The use of performance versus report-based measures is dealt with elsewhere – this entry instead focuses upon the use of...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Mount Gravatt, QLD, Australia

    Arthur Poropat & Daniel Cummings

Authors
  1. Arthur Poropat
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  2. Daniel Cummings
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Correspondence to Arthur Poropat .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Humboldt University, Germany, Berlin, Germany

    Matthias Ziegler

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Poropat, A., Cummings, D. (2017). Observer-Report Assessment of Personality and Individual Differences. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1336-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1336-1

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