Wearable Insights: The Potential of Tracking Technology to Enrich Psychological Research (WIP)

The potential of wearable technologies for human-subjects research is enormous, but large fields remain unexplored. Wearables could enrich psychological research by providing opportunities to collect less reactive “objective” data in real-life settings. Complementing reactive survey data (on which social science research is largely based) with less reactive behavioral or physiological data (i.e., multimethod research) can increase knowledge about psychological constructs and help test the robustness of questionnaire-based findings. However, before widespread use of wearables in psychological research can occur, the validity of this new technology for measuring psychological constructs needs to be demonstrated. In this project, we will begin exploring the potential of wearables for psychological research.

Funding: Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz Institute of Technology (LIT)

Budget: 171 544 €

Project duration: April 2017 – April 2018

Principal Investigator: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Bernad Batinic

Participants: Nina Grossi MSc, Mag.^a Fabiola Gattringer, Markus Hofmann, Alexander Siedler