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The preponderance of studies that rely on self-report for both independent (e.g. stressors) and dependent (e.g. well-being) variables is often deplored, as it creates problems of common method variance, which may lead to inflated, or even spurious, correlations and predictions. It is sometimes suggested that alternative measures should yield more “objective” information on the phenomena under investigation. We discuss this issue with regard to: (a) observational measures of working conditions; (b) physiological measures of strain; and (c) event-based “self-observation” on a micro-level. We argue that these methods are not necessarily “objective.” Like self-report, they are influenced by a plethora of factors; and measurement artifacts can easily be produced. All this can make their interpretation quite difficult, and the conclusion that lack of convergence with self-report automatically invalidates self-report is not necessarily warranted. Especially with regard to physiological measures, one has to keep in mind that they refer to a different response level that follows its own laws and is only loosely coupled with psychological responses. Therefore, replacement is not a promising way to get more reliable estimates of stressor-strain relationships. We argue instead that each method contains both substantive and error variance, and that a combination of various methods seems more auspicious. After discussing advantages and pitfalls of observational, physiological, and self-observational measures, respectively, we report empirical examples from our own research on each of these methods, which are meant to illustrate both the advantages and the problems associated with them. They strengthen the overall conclusion that there is no “substitute” for self-report (which often is necessary to be able to interpret data from other methods, most notably physiological ones). They also illustrate that collecting such data is quite cumbersome, and that a number of conditions have to be carefully considered before using them, and we report some problems we encountered in this research. Altogether, we conclude that self-report measures, if carefully constructed, are better than their reputation, but that the optimal way is to complement them with other measures.

This study compared the results of self-report and ability-based tests of problem-solving abilities of 144 hospitality managers working at hotels and restaurants through an online survey. In the first stage of the study, the managers were asked to fill in the self-report problem-solving ability scale by Tesone et al. (2010). In the second stage of the study, the managers were asked to respond to questions in a case-study-based problem-solving test.

Problem-solving is a key aspect of business process management. This study aims to investigate and compare hospitality managers' actual and claimed (self-report) problem-solving abilities. A lack of unawareness of the actual level of skills may be an important problem as managers who tend to have inflated self-efficacy beliefs are less likely to allocate resources, e.g. time, money and effort, to develop a particular skill or ability they lack. They are also more likely to take risks regarding that skill or ability.

The results of the study showed that there was a major difference between the results of the self-report test and the actual test. This meant that the managers who participated in the study had inflated self-efficacy beliefs regarding their problem-solving abilities, i.e. they operated under the influence of the Dunning–Kruger effect. The study showed that self-report tests that are commonly used in businesses in recruitment and promotion may not provide a correct level of people's abilities. In general, managers who have inflated self-efficacy beliefs are less likely to be interested in developing a particular skill due to the overconfidence arising from their inflated self-efficacy beliefs. The study showed that managers were less likely to allocate resources, e.g. time, money and effort, to develop a particular skill they lack and are more likely to take risks regarding that particular skill.

Managers in the hospitality industry appear to lack problem solving-abilities. While the hospitality managers assigned high marks for their problem-solving abilities in a self-report problem-solving scale and appeared to be performing significantly good overall in problem-solving, they performed poorly in an actual problem solving exercise. It is recommended that businesses rather than depending on self-report problem-solving scales, they should resort to ability-based scales or exercises that actually measure managers' problem-solving abilities. Also, as managers who had formal tourism and hospitality education performed poorly, tourism and hospitality programme managers at universities are recommend to review their syllabi and curriculum so as to help support their graduates' problem-solving abilities.

The study is original as no previous study compared managers' problem-solving abilities by using self-report and ability-based tests. The study has implications for researchers in terms of developing knowledge, ability and skill-based scales in the future. The study has also significant practical implications for the practitioners.

There has been a long-standing concern and controversy in the consumer behavior and related literature about the accuracy of consumers’ self-reports of their mental processes. While some researchers have found such reports to be susceptible to a number of inaccuracies, others have found them to be reasonably accurate. This study contributes to the debate by comparing consumers’ self-reports of their information acquisition processes in decision making with process-tracing measures of the same processes, and doing so within the context of research design recommendations suggested by Ericsson and Simon (1980, 1984, 1993) for collecting valid retrospective self-reports. Data for the study were collected in a decision-making experiment in which a custom-made computer software was used to administer two decision tasks and to unobtrusively measure subjects’ information acquisition patterns (process-tracing measures). Self-report measures were collected by means of a questionnaire administered after subjects completed both tasks. Descriptive discriminant analysis (with self-report measures as dependent and scores on process-tracing measures as independent variables) shows that subjects were able to accurately report their information acquisition patterns. For both decision tasks, the majority of subjects who were classified by the discriminant functions as using a particular information acquisition strategy actually reported using such a strategy. Implications of the findings are outlined and discussed.

This paper aims to assess predictive and convergent validity of a trait measure of conflict handling styles (DUTCH) with two alternative methods of measuring such styles: a vignette measure of behavioral choices (CB-Pref) and behavior in a role-played conflict. In addition, this paper investigates self-enhancement in responses to the two self-report measures.

In Studies 1 (N = 117), 2 (N = 116) and 4 (N = 68), participants completed the DUTCH and CB-Pref. In Study 3 (N = 56 dyads), participants completed the DUTCH and a role-played conflict. In Study 4, participants also responded to the measures as either a typical person or an ideal person would.

The DUTCH predicted four of five styles individuals chose across nine vignettes of the CB-Pref. In Study 4, the DUTCH predicted three of the five. In Study 3, only the DUTCH’s forcing style predicted actual behavior. In Study 4, participants rated themselves as more constructive and less destructive than typical, but less constructive than ideal. Participants in general were somewhat self-enhancing on both self-report measures, but individual differences in social desirability were generally unrelated to self-report responses.

This work takes a multi-method approach to assessing the validity of a self-report conflict style measure, allowing for the assessment of the measure’s predictive and convergent validity when predicting self-reported style tendencies to style selected in vignettes and behavior in a role-played conflict.

The longitudinal impact of media multitasking on the development of executive function has been understudied, as most of the existing studies are cross-sectional. This longitudinal study addresses this research gap and uses multiple measures, i.e. behavioral and self-reported, to explore the impact of media multitasking on the executive function of Chinese adolescents.

This study followed 99 Chinese adolescents (M_age = 14.41, SD = 1.10; 42 boys and 57 girls) for one year using both behavioral (2-back, Stroop Color and Number-letter tasks) and self-reported (questionnaire) measures. The adolescents were categorized as either heavy/high media multitaskers (HMMs; 19 boys and 29 girls) or light/low media multitaskers (LMMs; 23 boys and 28 girls). They were tested at baseline, 6 months later and 12 months later.

The results indicated that the accuracy scores for all cognitive tasks differed with age, but the switch-cost in the shifting task and the self-reported measures of executive function did not. And there were consistent differences between the HMMs and LMMs in the self-reported measures and 2-back accuracy. However, the interaction effect was found only in shifting ability, indicating a decline in the LMMs' self-reported problematic shifting behavior in daily life.

This study used behavioral and self-reported measures to confirm the longitudinal impact of media multitasking on executive function. The impact of media multitasking on executive function is more apparent in daily-life behavior than in cognitive task performance.

Official criminal justice statistics (e.g. arrest rates) underestimate the frequency of crime because not all crime gets reported to authorities, a phenomenon known as the “dark figure of crime.” The present study aims to examine the dark figure of violence committed by discharged psychiatric patients.

Multiple reporting modalities permitted a direct comparison between patients whose violence was officially detected to those whose violence was self-reported but not officially detected, along with differences in the nature of violent acts.

Only 5% of violent individuals were officially detected, 26% of violent individuals were both officially detected and self-reported their violent behavior, while 68% of violent individuals self-reported their violent behavior and were not officially detected. The type of violent acts did not vary as a function of whether they were officially detected or self-reported. However, differences were observed for the location of violence, the relationship to the victim and whether an injury resulted. Older individuals, those with prior arrests and those with higher psychopathy scores are some of the factors associated with an increased likelihood of officially detected violence.

The data were collected from three sites in the USA. Generalizing the specific findings to other locations and countries ought to be done cautiously.

Studies ought to include multiple methods to measure violence. Self-report seems to be especially important to the extent one is concerned with measuring actual violence rather than violence that gets detected by legal authorities.

This study highlights an important limitation of relying exclusively on official criminal justice statistics when studying violence or recidivism in the community.

Domestic preparation practices influence the sensory properties and nutritional composition of food products. Information on the variability in actual domestic preparation practices is needed to assess the influence of applied conditions on the sensory and nutritional quality of food. The collection of such information requires a reliable, valid and practical research method. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Direct in-home observations, observations in a model-kitchen using cameras, and a self-reporting questionnaire were evaluated for reliability and validity, to study domestic food preparation practices by consumers. Broccoli preparation practices by Dutch consumers were checked by these three methods in this research paper.

All three research methods were found to be test-retest, inter-observer, parallel-form reliable; and face, content and concurrent valid. However, the self-reporting questionnaire is the most practical research method that can be administered on a large number of respondents in a short time to capture the wide variations in preparation practices.

Consumers can be assisted on domestic food preparation practices that reach their sensory preferences (e.g. texture, colour) as well as have health benefits on consumption.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the perception of luxuriousness as a novel underlying mechanism of the shelf-based scarcity effect by using both psychophysiological measures (Study 1) and self-reported measures (Study 2).

Two within-subject experimental designs were conducted to examine the effects of low, medium and high stock depletion levels (i.e. shelf-based scarcity) on consumer responses. In Study 1, facial expression analysis was used to examine consumers’ liking, and left frontal asymmetry brainwaves were used to examine consumers’ approach motivation as a proxy for purchase intention. Study 2 extended the findings with self-reported measures.

In Study 1, perceived product luxuriousness was found to underlie the shelf-based scarcity effect on facial expressions and left frontal asymmetry brainwaves after controlling for other previously proposed mediators (i.e. product popularity and quality). The shelf-based scarcity effect is only observed between low vs high stock levels, whereas moderate stock level depletion does not evoke the shelf-based scarcity effect. Study 2 used self-reported measures to replicate the effect of shelf-based scarcity on product luxuriousness. However, the findings demonstrated the limitation of self-reported measures to identify a significant spill-over effect of perceived luxuriousness to attitude.

Extending previous literature that relied heavily on self-reported measures, the current research used psychophysiological methods to uncover perceived luxuriousness as a novel underlying mechanism for the shelf-based scarcity effect. Thus, the findings are not only the first to provide psychophysiological evidence of the shelf-based scarcity effect but also to validate perceived luxuriousness as an underlying mechanism of the shelf-based scarcity effect.

The current findings suggest that the shelf-based scarcity effect is only evoked by high (instead of moderate) levels of stock depletion. The study also shows that shelf-based scarcity does not necessarily signal product popularity, but instead it may serve as a cue of product luxuriousness. Adding to other manipulations of retail spaces that elicit luxury perception (e.g. artwork, sensory delight and themed store atmospherics), this implies that businesses are able to use shelf-based scarcity as a cue to enhance or complement the luxury image or the perception of the brand or product.

The current research is the first study to use psychophysiological techniques to examine perceived luxuriousness as an underlying mechanism of shelf-based scarcity. It also demonstrates that self-report measures are not sensitive to such an effect in comparison to psychophysiological techniques, explaining why perceived luxuriousness has not been previously found to be an underlying mechanism of shelf-based scarcity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the dark figure of crime among federal sex offenders from the USA to quantify crime victims and sex crime events among those with no official criminal record.

Using data on 119 offenders selected from a five-year census of sex offenders selected from a federal probation jurisdiction in the Midwestern United States, descriptive, partial correlations, and ROC-AUC models were conducted.

In total, 69 percent of offenders self-reported a contact sexual offense during polygraph examination. In total, 34 offenders had zero official record of sexual abuse but non-zero self-reported history of sexual abuse. These 34 clients offended against 148 victims that potentially denoted a minimum number of 148 sex crime events, a median number of 1,480 sex crime events, a mean number of 32,101 sex crime events, and a maximum number of 827,552 sex crime events. Total paraphilias were not predictive of self-reported sexual offending but were strongly associated with prolific self-reported sexual offending.

The dark figure of sexual offending is enormous and the revelation of this information is facilitated by polygraph examination of federal sex offenders. Ostensibly non-contact sex offenders such as those convicted of possession of child pornography are very likely to have a history of contact sexual offending. Consistent with the containment model, polygraph examinations of the sexual history of offenders convicted of sexual offenses should be required to facilitate public safety.

The purpose of this study (mixed-method) was to examine the effectiveness of two types of marketing interventions on water conservation behavior and to compare behaviors to self-reported conservation claims.

This paper consists of four phases (advertisement selection focus group, behavioral trace field study, self-report survey and follow-up focus group). In the USA, residing in a dormitory typically includes a fee for water without quantity restrictions. The subjects for this research were college students who lived in dormitories at a medium-sized university in southeastern USA where metering individual water consumption is not possible.

The results of the field study phase of student water conservation behaviors were not congruent with the participants’ self-reported behaviors. Phase 2 yielded results contrary to published laboratory experimental research in which cause-related claims were effective.

This research was limited by a single sample (one university), time (13 weeks) and the inability to measure individual consumption behavior. However, valuable findings were obtained, and suggestions surfaced for future research.

Using eco-feedback technology and advertisements may result in significant cost savings. While findings were somewhat inconclusive, there was evidence that the use of the eco-feedback technology could result in cost savings for the subject university.

The behavioral trace study is one of the first field research studies in the marketing discipline designed to examine resource conservation behavior in an impactful way. Further, this research used a single sample triangulated methodology across Phases 2, 3 and 4.