Comment: YourBrainOnPorn.com has long understood the value of self-reports in revealing the risks of new technologies, such as free internet porn. There are thousands of such self-reports on this website. Sexology researchers suggested that such self-reports were “worthless anecdotes.” Now, however, a top “Nature” journal has determined that self-reports are superior to various other research measures. Don’t let researchers with vested interests fool you!
Nature Reviews – Psychology
Corneille, O., Gawronski, B. Nat Rev Psychol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-024-00376-z
Abstract
Self-report measures directly ask respondents to report their mental content, such as thoughts and feelings. By contrast, implicit measures aim to assess thoughts and feelings using performance indicators (for example, response times, error rates and response frequencies) under conditions that favour automatic processing. Implicit measures are now widely used in psychological science and beyond, because they are assumed to be superior to self-reports in various ways. In this Perspective, we argue that, despite the enthusiasm for implicit measures, self-reports are most often the better measurement option. First, the use of implicit measures is often based on mistaken assumptions about the disadvantages of self-reports. Second, self-reports have advantageous characteristics that are currently unmatched in implicit measures. We call for a more sophisticated use of self-reports and for caution when using implicit measures in basic and applied research.
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