Definition
Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is the repeated real-time sampling of a person’s current behavior and experiences in the natural environment.
Stone and Shiffman (1994) coined the term ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to describe a collection of methods involved in the repeated administration of assessments in real time (or close to it) in a person’s natural environment. In signal-contingent recording, participants are signaled multiple times each day, for a period of days or weeks, to report on current or recent psychological states (e.g., negative affect), behaviors (e.g., binge eating), and/or environmental conditions (e.g., stressful events) (Wheeler and Reis 1991). The signaling typically occurs through the use of small electronic devices such as palmtop computers or smartphones. Assessments can focus on immediate experiences (e.g., what...
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References and Further Reading
De Young, K. P., Lavender, J. M., Crosby, R. D., Wonderlich, S. A., Engel, S. G., Mitchell, J. E., Crow, S. J., Peterson, C. B., & Le Grange, D. (2014). Bidirectional associations between binge eating and restriction in anorexia nervosa: An ecological momentary assessment study. Appetite, 83(1), 69–74.
Engel, S. G., Wonderlich, S. A., Crosby, R. D., Mitchell, J. E., Crow, S., Peterson, C. B., Le Grange, D., Simonich, H. K., Cao, L., Lavender, J. M., & Gordon, K. H. (2013). The role of affect in the maintenance of anorexia nervosa: Evidence from a naturalistic assessment of momentary behaviors and emotion. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 122(3), 709–719.
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Crosby, R.D., Lavender, J.M., Engel, S.G., Wonderlich, S.A. (2015). Ecological Momentary Assessment. In: Wade, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Feeding and Eating Disorders. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-087-2_159-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-087-2_159-1
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