Teaching and Learning Guide for: Eavesdropping on Health: A Naturalistic Observation Approach to Social Health Research

Over the last years, health psychology has amounted impressive evidence that social factors play a critical role in primary and tertiary prevention. However, compared with other fields, it has somewhat lagged behind in implementing methodological advances that can considerably improve the sophistication of the assessment of such social factors. In essence, this article seeks to motivate readers to think beyond global and retrospective self-reports in health research and points them to unique potentials that ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methods (also often referred to as experience sampling, dairy, or ambulatory assessment methods) offer. In particular, the article reviews one specific and still relatively novel observational ecological momentary assessment method, the Electronically Activated Recorder or EAR.