How do you overcome the flaws of self reporting?
I know this is a bit of a loaded topic and I anticipate the answer(s) might be that it's impossible, but can the flaws of self reporting be overcome?
So for example, there are plenty of people who are not self-reflective or aware, and who believe things about themselves that no one around them would agree with, demonstrated by behaviour and its outcomes.
A classic example would be the bullying, argumentative individual who believes themselves to be sweet, kind and accommodating. Or the person who thinks they are highly creative when compared to others, but largely just steals ideas.
Such people will go into tests, like those surrounding the big 5, and more than likely answer based on their internal sense of self.
However, where that mismatches with the external presentation of self and outcomes, it can produce a strange set of results that are incongruent.
For example, I'm blind to many aspects of myself that others have pointed out. I often used to see myself as introverted and introspective, but people tell me there's no way that could be the case and that I am clearly extroverted in my motivations and behaviour.
People tell me I talk a lot, despite seeing myself as quiet (though I think people confuse verbosity with frequency of opening one's mouth - to be fair this post is evidence of verbosity).
I have difficulty gauging whether any of my results are ever accurate since I tend to get very low extraversion and exceptionally low agreeableness. But being too willing to accept the bad treatment of others and people please points to the opposite of low agreeableness.
People regularly tell me the classic sign that "you're too nice" which flies in the face of my own self reporting.
This makes me doubt my own understanding of the questions and certainly of myself.
The only trait I think is accurate is (tragically) high neuroticism, which I have found is a largely useless trait in my life and has to be compensated by immense efforts everywhere else.
The other is medium to low conscientiousness, which is also a poor position to be in, since I can't see any benefits from being low in this trait throughout one's life. Especially not with high neuroticism since you don't even get that high-achiever perfectionism that can at least carry you to some kind of fulfilling success (however you want to define this) through sheer grit.
I guess the only way to overcome it is to listen to others and reflect as unbiased as I can manage.
Frankly I do not like my personality, because the way I am which most naturally arises (without conscious effort) has done nothing but hinder my life and make things worse through self-destructive and self-sabotaging behaviours.
I have tried acceptance but I found that made me complacent and only kicked the can down the road on my personal issues.
I will keep trying to change, even if it is ultimately impossible.
In any case I do think this is an interesting issue that plagues a lot of theories and ideas where self-reporting is a necessity for data .
What do people here think?