An Exploration of Informant Characteristics Associated with Bias on Informant-Report Measures of Per

Abstract

Personality assessment often uses information obtained from knowledgeable informants, but data derived from informant-report measures are not entirely objective. Rather, research suggests informant ratings can vary as a function of informant characteristics. This symposium presents four studies that each used a Social Relations Model (SRM) approach with round-robin data to investigate several characteristics believed to be biasing the way informants perceive, and therefore rate, the personality of others on informant-report measures. The symposium begins with a brief introduction to the SRM, followed by individual presentations of four studies. The first study investigated the role of informants’ subjective well-being in evaluative bias, asking the question: Is the way an informant perceives their own well-being associated with biased ratings of others’ personality dysfunction? The second study explored whether informant ratings of personality are biased by informants’ knowledge of and attitudes toward mental illness. The AMPD conceptualizes personality pathology in terms of personality functioning impairment and maladaptive traits, both of which can lead to unclear or distorted perceptions of others. These dynamics were examined in studies three and four. Study three inspected associations between informants’ levels of personality functioning impairment and variations in the way they tend to rate the personality pathology of others. Complementing study three, study four inspected links between bias on informant-report measures and informants’ personality traits, examining both normal (Big Five) and maladaptive variants to decipher if and how these differ in terms of their contributions to biased ratings. The symposium concludes with a discussant briefly summarizing the potential implications of this line of research for the practice of personality assessment, as well as how these findings could lend themselves to instrument revision and the development of more focused and psychometrically sound informant-report measures. Data collection for these studies is ongoing using the following procedure: Community and university participants are being recruited and asked to identify four or more other individuals who all know each other reasonably well, thereby forming multiple groups of five or more. The initial participant and each group member receive a link to an online study where they are asked to complete a series of self-report measures and then rate the personality of each of the other group members using the LPFS-BF 2.0, PID5BF+M, and BFI-2-S and each group member is rated by all other group members (i.e., round-robin design). An SRM approach is then used to estimate the amount of variance in ratings attributable to informants’ idiosyncratic biases on informant-report measures, and bivariate correlation coefficients are then calculated to estimate relationships between informant bias and the informant characteristics of interest.

Discussant

Adam Natoli | Sam Houston University

Goals & Objectives

1. Describe the Social Relations Model and list its four components.
2. Discuss multiple factors associated with evaluative bias on informant-report measures of personality.
3. Identify at least two strategies for addressing evaluative bias in personality assessment practice and research.