The use of self-report measures in personality assessment arose from…

The use of self-report measures in personality assessment arose from whose suggestion that the best method to assess a person is by asking her/him about herself/himself?

Answer & explanation

Correct answer: option 4

The correct answer is Option (4) → Allport

Option (1) Rorschach — Incorrect. Hermann Rorschach developed the Inkblot Test, a projective technique. It uses unstructured stimuli.

Option (2) Eysenck — Incorrect. Eysenck developed the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, a well-known self-report measure. He built one such test but did not give the idea behind them.

Option (3) Hathaway — Incorrect. Hathaway, with McKinley, developed the MMPI as a helping tool for psychiatric diagnosis. It is one of the self-report measures.

Option (4) Allport — Correct. Allport suggested asking a person about herself or himself as the best way to assess the person. This idea led to self-report measures, which are fairly structured and use rating scales.

NCERT (2026-27): “Self-report Measures
It was Allport who suggested that the best method to assess a person is by asking her/him about herself/himself. This led to the use of self-report measures. These are fairly structured measures, often based on theory, that require subjects to give verbal responses using some kind of rating scale. The method requires the subject to objectively report her/his own feelings with respect to various items. The responses are accepted at their face value. They are scored in quantitative terms and interpreted on the basis of norms developed for the test. …”

“This inventory is widely used as a test in personality assessment. Hathaway and McKinley developed this test as a helping tool for psychiatric diagnosis, but the test has been found very effective in identifying varieties of psychopathology. …”