How can researchers study personality processes and their social consequences? In our methodology overview, we first introduce ambulatory assessment methods, which repeatedly measure experiences, physiology and behaviour in people’s daily lives based on real?time assessments of self?reports, physiological activity and behavioural observations. Then, we describe methods suitable for assessing personality processes in laboratory settings: self?reports on interpersonal perception, physiological measurements and behavioural observation. We discuss the combination of field and laboratory assessment methods based on their respective strengths and limitations and then highlight ethical issues surrounding the use of these methods. Finally, we propose future avenues for how developments in mobile technology can be used to advance personality research. The increasing availability and the decreasing costs of smartphones, wearable sensors and Internet connectivity offer unique potentials for further understanding the processes underlying how personality exerts broad and important social consequences. Copyright ? 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology

“The possibilities mobile sensing opens up for the social, behavioral, biomedical, and life sciences appear almost infinite and are bound to become even more comprehensive in the years to come. However, data collection with new information technology also poses new challenges for research and applied fields. Is everything that is possible also legally allowed? What are the personal and societal consequences of the possible deep insights into very private areas of life for research ethics and the relations between the researchers and those being researched? How can data be stored so that anonymity and privacy are preserved? How can quality criteria be formulated for this new and rapidly developing field of research? And how can we ensure that information and predictions derived from mobile sensing are psychometrically accurate and practically useful as we move from scientific proof-of-concept measurements to medical/clinical measurements that aim at supporting and improving the diagnostic process? This handbook answers these questions and based on the conviction that a profound understanding and the sound application of mobile sensing methods require specific knowledge and competencies: scientific background and the key concepts, how to generally plan and conduct a mobile sensing study, different methods of data collection with mobile sensing, both in terms of the technological know-how and the methodological how-to, and possibilities and limitations of mobile sensing and of best-practice examples from different areas of application”–