0000000000131607

AUTHOR

Matthias R. Mehl

Lab And/Or Field? Measuring Personality Processes and Their Social Consequences

How can researchers study personality processes and their social consequences? In our methodology overview, we first introduce ambulatory assessment methods, which repeatedly measure experiences, physiology and behaviour in people's daily lives based on real–time assessments of self–reports, physiological activity and behavioural observations. Then, we describe methods suitable for assessing personality processes in laboratory settings: self–reports on interpersonal perception, physiological measurements and behavioural observation. We discuss the combination of field and laboratory assessment methods based on their respective strengths and limitations and then highlight ethical issues sur…

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Ecological Sampling Methods for Studying Everyday Situations

This chapter reviews existing and emerging methodologies for the ambulatory assessment of real-world situations. It distinguishes between first-person/subjective and third-person/objective approaches and provides research examples for each reviewed ecological assessment method. The chapter opens with a discussion of why it is important to assess situations directly in daily life. The following two main sections review approaches for (a) the first-person assessment of real-world situation experiences and perceptions, such as experience sampling and daily diary approaches, and (b) the third-person assessment of objective real-world situation cues, such as naturalistic observation and mobile s…

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