In
experimental psychology and
medical science
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practic ...
, a subjective report is information collected from an experimental subject's description of their own experiences, symptoms or histories. Subjective reporting is the act of an individual describing their own
subjective experience, following their
introspection
Introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings. In psychology, the process of introspection relies on the observation of one's mental state, while in a spiritual context it may refer to the examination of one's sou ...
on physical or psychological effects under consideration.
The method of subjective report analysis also encompasses obtaining information from a subject's own recollection, such as verbal case histories, or experiences in the individual's wider daily life.
Investigative techniques
Collection of subjective reports consists simply of asking the subject to reflect on their own individual experience;
subjective report techniques may vary from open-ended interviews to formal
questionnaire
A questionnaire is a research instrument that consists of a set of questions (or other types of prompts) for the purpose of gathering information from respondents through survey or statistical study. A research questionnaire is typically a mix of ...
s consisting of specific, response-constrained questions or
Likert items, the latter being used in quantitative and qualitative analyses. Whereas evidential, controlled methods of experimentation yield ''objective'' information on processes observable objectively by the experimenter — that is, the experimenter can observe the given effect externally through some experimental means, such as in
problem-solving tasks or laboratory tests — analysis via ''subjective'' report obtains the subject's own opinion on a particular task or subject under investigation
and allows study of effects outside of the scope of controlled clinical analysis.
Applications of subjective report analysis
Fields that rely heavily on subjective report include
social psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the ...
; studies of
sexuality (the best known of subjective report studies in this field being the ''
Kinsey Reports''
);
pharmacological trials of
psychiatric
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry.
Initial psy ...
and
analgesic (pain relief) medication; and
ethnography, the study of cultures and cultural processes as part of
social science
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...
. A 2003 experimental study by Coghill ''et al'' determined that subjective reports of
pain were capable of being correlated statistically to
neuroimaging
Neuroimaging is the use of quantitative (computational) techniques to study the structure and function of the central nervous system, developed as an objective way of scientifically studying the healthy human brain in a non-invasive manner. Incr ...
data, verifying the reports as being, for the most part, sufficiently accurate for clinical purposes.
Issues of veracity of subjective reports can, however, be a limiting factor in using them to draw experimental conclusions. An example is the so called ''complaint bias'' whereby people exaggerate the extent of their self-reported negative feelings.
References
[{{cite journal, last=Richardson, first= A., year= 1999 , title= Subjective Experience: Its Conceptual Status, Method of Investigation, and Psychological Significance, journal= The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, publisher= Helen Dwight Reid Educational Foundation, volume= 133 , issue= 5, pages= 469–485, url= http://heldref-publications.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.1080/00223989909599756, doi=10.1080/00223989909599756]
Experimental psychology
Clinical research
Subjective experience