Intensive Longitudinal Methods: Toward a Psychological Science of Daily Life with Dr. Jean-Philippe Laurenceau

About the event

Colloquium & Drop-in sessions with J.P. Laurenceau at SFU-Burnaby*, Dec 4-5, 2025 

December 4th, 2025, 2:30-4pm, Colloquium in RCB-6152,
December 5th, 2025, 9:30-12:30, Open Drop-in Conversation Sessions in RCB 6152

Colloquium Title and Abstract: 

Intensive Longitudinal Methods: Toward a Psychological Science of Daily Life
Jean-Philippe Laurenceau, Ph.D.
University of Delaware

The use of Intensive Longitudinal Methods (ILMs) has grown exponentially in the behavioral, social, and biomedical sciences over the past 30 years. As noted by Gordon Allport, these methods allow researchers to study "life as it is lived." ILMs represent a class of longitudinal designs used to understand the flow of people’s thoughts, feelings, physiology, and behaviors in their natural settings. This umbrella term encompasses daily diary, experience sampling, ecological momentary assessment, ambulatory assessment, and related methods for studying daily life. In this talk, I will review the current status of and future directions for ILMs where three core ideas will permeate: To build adequate theories of psychological functioning in natural settings, researchers must focus on (a) kinematics, (b) dynamics, and (c) heterogeneity. Kinematics answers the question, What happened? Dynamics answers the question, Why did it happen? Heterogeneity answers the question, How much do people vary in the whats and whys? ILMs can address these three goals of psychological science.

About the speaker: 

Jean-Philippe (J-P) Laurenceau, Ph.D. (B.A. 1992 Cornell; Ph.D. 1999 Penn State) is the Unidel A. Gilchrist Sparks III Endowed Chair in the Social Sciences and Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences at the University of Delaware (UD) where he teaches courses on methodology and applied data analysis as well as intimate relationships. He also is Senior Research Scientist at the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center (Christiana Care Health System) as well as affiliated faculty at UD's Data Science Institute. J-P uses Intensive Longitudinal Methods to study individual and dyadic processes related to intimacy and health. He is an elected member of the Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology and fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. J-P is co-author with Niall Bolger of the book Intensive Longitudinal Methods: An Introduction to Diary and Experience Sampling Research (Guilford Press). He has been PI of several NIH projects including a current National Cancer Institute-funded grant examining the health consequences of fear of cancer recurrence in breast cancer survivors and their spouses/partners. For further details, please see his academic web page (https://tinyurl.com/JPLUDPBS).   

VIDEO and SLIDES

The video and slides for the public colloquium are provided. These materials are available for non-commercial use only. If you use of these materials for non-commercial purposes, please make sure to give proper attribution: 

Laurenceau, Jean-Philippe. (December 4, 2025). Intensive Longitudinal Methods: Toward a Psychological Science of Daily Life. SFU Psychology History, Quantiative, and Theoretical Psychology and JEDAI Workgroup Public Collloquium, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. 

Watch Video: https://sfu.zoom.us/rec/share/M-vKDHyhF-S2vNlswszGzx_0T8UVeJopMjCnRA8FY4ZHu1Oljs6N-wTwf4b75nJA.Oqek9Fegzw2l-W2T
Passcode: ?r?5sx

Access the Slides with music clips here: Laurenceau-SFU-ILM-Talk-Dec2025.pdf - Google Drive.

The events, recording, and slides are offered free to attendees and others. If you would like to make a donation in appreciation of these materials, please consider donations to one of the following:
- for Indigenous Students, e.g. the First Nations, Metis, Inuit Student Association Endowments.
  visit: https://secure.give.sfu.ca/donate, and search Indigenous.
- the Indian Residential School Survivors Society, visit: https://www.irsss.ca/
Indspire, visit: https://indspire.ca/ways-to-give/donate/

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If you are interested in additional resources on topics around Reconciliation/Decolonization/EDI, you may also interested in the recording/resources for the talk by Dr. Mary Jude Cenat and Resrouces on the SFU Psyc JEDAI Workgroup website, and in visiting the SFU Psyc IRC Resources page and links. They are continually being updated: https://www.sfu.ca/psychology/about/indigenous-reconciliation/resources.html