Novel ecological momentary assessment tools for studying deception and health behavior
Abstract
Self-report methods for assessing attitudes and behavior are criticized for being victim to recall bias and reporting error, but also because they require people to consider their current mental state in addition to contextual and cultural factors related to the measurement. Eco logical momentary assessment (EMA) is a class of self-report data collection methods that remedies these shortcomings by assessing attitudes and behavior in situ using computers or mobile devices. We developed EMA tools to study deception and health behavior. In our deception research, we developed and implemented a method that required participants to assess deceptiveness of instant messages they sent over a 4-day period. To study health, we developed a mobile application that participants used to photograph, comment and rate healthiness of daily health behaviors. These novel methods provide a rich representation of the context and motivations behind deception and health behaviors.