Self‐informant agreement for personality and evaluative person descriptors: Comparing methods for creating informant measures

Little attention typically is paid to the way self‐report measures are translated for use in self‐informant agreement studies. We studied two possible methods for creating informant measures: (a) the traditional method in which self‐report items were translated from the first‐ to the third‐person and (b) an alternative meta‐perceptual method in which informants were directed to rate their perception of the targets' self‐perception. We hypothesized that the latter method would yield stronger self‐informant agreement for evaluative personality dimensions measured by indirect item markers. We studied these methods in a sample of 303 undergraduate friendship dyads. Results revealed mean‐level differences between methods, similar self‐informant agreement across methods, stronger agreement for Big Five dimensions than for evaluative dimensions, and incremental validity for meta‐perceptual informant rating methods. Limited power reduced the interpretability of several sparse acquaintanceship effects. We conclude that traditional informant methods are appropriate for most personality traits, but meta‐perceptual methods may be more appropriate when personality questionnaire items reflect indirect indicators of the trait being measured, which is particularly likely for evaluative traits. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.