fectly reasonable; in practice, it is prohibitively expensive and time con -
suming.
Furthermore, observations of behavior, regardless of their number,
may not be the most accurate source of answers. If we are really inter -
ested in an individual’s dispositions, how the person feels may be much
more relevant than how he or she acts. It may be necessary for him orher to put on a front, to play a role, to seem instead of being . A simple
question asked in a way that allows for a candid answer may give a fartruer picture of real dispositions. In some areas, such as happiness, itcan reasonably be argued that personal opinion is the only meaningfulcriterion.
It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that trait psychology
floundered over these issues for most of its history . The great majorityof researchers have been content to hand out questionnaires and trustthe self-reports of their respondents, but their conclusions have beendismissed time and again because of objections about the kinds of er-rors to which self-report instruments are prone (Berg, 1959; Edwards,1957; Fisher, Schoenfeldt, & Shaw , 1993). Behaviorists have scoffed atthe idea that paper-and-pencil measures can be a substitute for the ob-servations of real behavior. Psychodynamic theorists have objected thatunconscious defense mechanisms or more or less conscious tendenciesto present a socially desirable image of oneself make self-reports sus-pect. Social psychologists have contended that what counts is the per-ception of behavior by significant others and that, in consequence, onlyratings should be trusted.
In the past 20 years these controversies have been resolved, at least
to the satisfaction of most psychologists. We know only too well thatany single method of measurement, any source of answers to our ques -
tions, is subject to certain kinds of error and that consequently the sur -
est results are those that can be seen using several different methods, as
Campbell and Fiske (1959) noted long ago. But we are also beginningto see convincing evidence that, properly employed, many methods cangive a reasonable approximation to the truth. A growing body of studieshas shown that different methods do lead to the same conclusions aboutpeople.
One line of research has been concerned with correspondence be -
tween objective, observable behavior and self-reports. In one study
(McGowan & Gormly , 1976), researchers followed a small group of col -
lege students and clocked their speed of walking. The fastest walkersMeasuring Personality 39