Peter Kuppens

Background: Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) captures experience and behavior as they occur in daily life, yielding intensive longitudinal data that are well suited for modeling within- and between-person processes and outcomes. However, heterogeneity in EMA items across studies hampers comparability, data aggregation, and reproducibility.Objective: To establish expert consensus on an EMA core item set, a standardized set of momentary variables from which comparable phenotypic indicators can later be derived. This minimum item set aims to be broadly applicable yet concise enough for use in large-scale research consortia and routine care while maintaining minimal completion time and assessment burden, adopting a nested structure (i.e., minimum core, extended core, add-on modules).Methods: A Delphi study was conducted with support from an international expert panel (J.S., P.K., I.M-G., P.W., M.L.) and 50 invited EMA experts from the German Center for Mental Health (DZPG). Candidate items were derived from prior work, the international expert panel, as well as a narrative review. The items were iteratively refined between Delphi rounds based on aggregated ratings and expert comments. They were assigned to one of three layers – the minimum core, extended core, or add-on modules – according to their degree of generality, the minimum core comprising the most broadly applicable items. A priori consensus was set at ≥75% endorsement. Rating stability and qualitative agreement informed revisions. Experts additionally reported on current methodological EMA practices (e.g., sampling frequency, study duration).Results: The EMA core phenotype was established in three rounds. Participation was n=41 in Round 1 (82%), n=43 in Round 2 (86%), and n=40 in Round 3 (80%). Of 69 initial item candidates, 37 partly revised items remained in the three-tiered structure. The finalized EMA minimum core (7 items) comprises four affect items, one item on social context, and two items on positive and negative events. The EMA extended core includes 5 additional items (total 12) on affect, social context, and activities. Completion time for both the minimum and extended core remains low. More specific items (e.g., self-esteem) are reserved for more specific EMA add-on modules.Conclusions: The consensus-derived DZPG EMA core phenotype provides a consented, ready-to-use item set that balances information yield with minimal assessment burden. By harmonizing EMA assessment across studies, it facilitates comparability, data pooling, and reproducible research while supporting integration into large-scale digital mental health assessment and intervention pipelines. The EMA core will be maintained as a living, versioned measure. Ongoing initiatives include a prospectively specified, multi-study validation program of items, systematic variation of design and assessment procedures (e.g., answering formats), as well as cross-cultural adaptation of the EMA core phenotype.

The impact of item-specific and common-trait variance on self-other agreement in NEO-PI-R/3 personality ratings was examined in five samples (N = 12,233) representing Czech, Estonian, Flemish, German, and U.S. English speakers. Common variance, reflected in covariation among items, was assessed by comparing self-other correlations for facet and domain scores with the mean item-level correlations. Although common variance accounted for 70-75% of facet and about 90% of domain score variance, it contributed only 40-50% to self-other agreement. These findings suggest that accurate personality assessment begins with item-level nuances, with broader traits emerging only after aggregating many items. Similar item-level agreement across languages indicates that personality nuances possess universal qualities transcending linguistic and cultural differences.

To unravel daily life emotion dynamics in borderline personality disorder (BPD) and evaluate the role context, we compared persons with BPD (N=40), a major depressive episode (MDE;N=38) and healthy controls (HC;N=40) on positive and negative event occurrence in daily life, reactivity to these events, and subsequent emotional recovery. All groups were prompted 10 times per day for 7 days to rate current positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) and the occurrences of positive and negative events using smartphones. While no differences were found for positive events, both clinical groups were more likely to report experiencing negative events compared to HC. Persons with BPD showed stronger reactivity in PA and NA following an event, but also larger changes in NA in the absence of negative events. Less robust indications were found for more recovery in PA and NA following the event. Findings highlight the importance of considering context in which changes occur.

Collecting intensive longitudinal data via methods like ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is necessary to study dynamics in psychological constructs. However, detecting careless responding is more important than ever, as this methodology burdens participants more than traditional single-survey studies. If undetected, careless responding reduces data quality and can lead to invalid findings by distorting correlations between items and constructs and compromising the psychometric properties of scales. In turn, this hinders progress toward cumulative psychological science. In recent years, several data-driven approaches have been proposed that assess whether an individual was attentive or careless for each time point-specific measurement after data collection. However, the variety and complexity of available methods can be overwhelming for researchers. In this article, we summarized, applied, and compared 13 methods that flag careless responses in a rich EMA data set from the WARN-D study with 206,318 observations (from n = 1,194 participants). Together with our detailed online supplementary tutorials, the article serves as a guide for researchers to evaluate and report careless responding in their own data. At the same time, we show that the development of methods for careless responding detection is still in its early stages, as the studied approaches produced very different results. We provide recommendations for which methods are currently most promising based on our findings and discuss important next steps in validating them empirically. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

In dyadic daily life research, one is interested in how dyads navigate daily life events. A challenge in such research is how to make sure that dyad members report on the same events. We propose a novel open question design in which one dyad partner concisely describes an event; afterwards this description is automatically sent to the other partner by the data collection software. We tested the feasibility of this novel design in a three‐week daily diary study in 107 romantic couples. Each day, one partner was asked to concisely describe the most negative event of that day that involved both partners and to rate the negativity of this event on a 0–100 scale. Next, the other partner was prompted with this event description and asked to rate recognition and their experienced negativity. The couple‐wise compliance (i.e., both partners completed the diary) was high ( M = 89%). Partners recognized 97% of the events described by their partner. The experience of the chosen events was moderately negative with a higher intensity for the senders ( M = 41.10) than for the receivers ( M = 32.98). Overall, our findings demonstrate the feasibility of this method to report on shared daily life events.

In experience sampling (ESM) studies, participants are measured repeatedly to track momentary affect changes. The data is collected in specific time intervals, leaving gaps between assessments. To capture affective changes between assessments, we developed a measure where participants retrospectively draw their affect in a continuous drawing. This approach, while more complete, may be influenced by retrospective biases, such as the peak-end effect, where intense or recent moments are remembered disproportionately. In an ESM study, 115 participants rated their momentary positive and negative affect six times daily, drew affect changes between assessments, reported events, and completed one daily measurement burst with up to six momentary ratings. We examined the divergence of the retrospective continuous affect drawings from the momentary affect and event ratings, respectively. For positive affect, intensity and recency were associated with lower divergence; the association was nonlinear. Divergence was greatest at low intensity and reduced at moderate to high levels. For negative affect, intensity was associated with higher divergence and recency with lower divergence. The effect of intensity diminished over time, indicating that divergence is mostly determined by recency. Findings were similar for events, except that for negative events, there was no recency effect. Future research should consider the effect of time and intensity, especially the differential effect of positive and negative intensity, on short retrospective ESM measures.

Love emerges through interpersonal exchanges that evolve over time. A comprehensive account of love should reflect this dynamic nature and encompass its temporal and interpersonal aspects. As such, we propose integrating these dynamics into the target article’s framework to better align with relationship science and more accurately capture how romantic relationships develop, persist, and change across time and interaction.

In experience sampling studies, participants are intermittently measured with repeatedassessments, to track momentary affect changes. The data is collected in specific timeintervals, leaving information gaps between assessments. To capture affective changesbetween assessments, we developed a continuous measure where participantsretrospectively draw their affective trajectories. This approach, while potentially morecomplete, may be influenced by retrospective biases, such as the peak-end effect, whereintense or recent moments are remembered disproportionately. In an experience samplingstudy 115 participants rated their momentary positive and negative affect six times daily,drew affect changes between assessments, reported events, and completed one dailyhigh-intensity sampling session with up to six additional momentary ratings. We examinedthe divergence of the retrospective continuous affect drawings from the momentary affectand event ratings, respectively. Results showed that for positive affect, divergence betweendrawings and momentary or event ratings decreased with higher intensity. For negativeaffect, however, higher intensity increased the divergence, but this effect was moderated bythe recency of the momentary rating or event. Findings suggest that negative affect tendsto be reported differently in retrospective assessments compared to momentary evaluationsor event assessments. This divergence should be taken into account in future studies usingthis method.