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The Editors at Communications Psychology invite submissions that implement intensive longitudinal designs in Psychology.
This curated Collection of research Articles and Resources seeks to bring together high-quality publications that utilize intensive longitudinal methods including experience sampling, daily diaries, ecological momentary assessment, and ambulatory assessments. Submissions may come from developmental, health, social, educational, cognitive and clinical psychology as well as any field of psychology or neighbouring disciplines using these methods to assess psychological research questions.
We welcome work that capitalizes on the within-person structure of the intensive longitudinal data. Although between-person data may be included, work that focuses purely on between-person analysis falls outside the scope of the collection. We encourage work that showcases the heightened ecological validity possible with this method, especially research from domains traditionally studied in the lab. Methods work that advances the application of intensive longitudinal designs or the analysis of the data derived from such designs is also welcome.
The journals will consider submissions of research Articles, Registered Reports, and Resources on the topic. More information on the different formats can be found here. If you are interested in contributing a review, primer, or opinion piece, please email the Editors directly. We will highlight relevant publications in this Collection.
The experience sampling method (ESM) collects real-time reports of people’s feelings, actions, and surroundings, and originally included both numerical and open-ended responses. Whereas most studies today focus only on the numbers, we argue that open-ended responses should be collected and analyzed again, because they are essential for understanding what the numbers mean and for capturing context and the temporal order of experiences.
An intensive longitudinal randomized-control trial tested habit degradation strategies and reward for unhealthy snacking habits. Habit strength declined, with steeper early reductions in intervention groups than control and with no evidence of differences by strategy or reward.
Over 8 days, 318 midlife parents tracked their emotions and stress hormones. On days with personal time, mood and stress recovery were improved—particularly for those high in neuroticism or openness— highlighting the benefits of daily “me time.”
Cognitive performance is a common concern among cancer survivors. Comparing survivors to controls on objective tasks in daily life, survivors had better average scores but showed greater fluctuations.
Using a 35-day experience sampling study with 293 parents, this research explores dynamic links between parental burnout and genuine emotional expression during the holiday season, uncovering unidirectional effects and dynamic patterns that shape long-term adjustment.
Across a four-week ecological momentary assessment with university students, between-subject and reciprocal within-subject associations between self-esteem and burnout symptoms occurred, which were partly mediated by repetitive negative thinking.
Using longitudinal data from the National Study of Daily Experiences, results indicate perceived control is a psychosocial correlate of stressor resolution and an important appraisal resource for daily stress processes across the adult lifespan.
Data obtained from a 7-day experience sampling method in a sample of US American users of Twitter (now X) shows short term relationships between Twitter use and wellbeing, sense of belonging, and experienced outrage.
Youth daily stress affects parents’ daily cortisol levels, mood, and physical health symptoms, indicating a crossover effect of adolescents’ daily stress on their parents’ wellbeing.
Daily use of social media in older children and young adolescents was associated with lower self-worth both between and within individuals. All between and some within-person effects were mediated by the general impression of others being better off.
This collaborative realist review examines evidence for the use of remote measurement technologies for depression in young people, to inform future research and practice.
Self-regulation helps people to achieve their goals, and has been studied across modalities. Here, the authors present longitudinal evidence suggesting that common neural and behavioral measures of self-regulation derived from laboratory tasks do not predict everyday goal pursuit.
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Communications Psychology (Commun Psychol)
ISSN 2731-9121 (online)
© 2026 Springer Nature Limited