Glossary // Glossary term Technical

Within-person and between-person effects

Two distinct questions that the same variables can answer. A between-person effect compares people, for example whether those who share emotions more often than others report more well-being; a within-person effect compares one person with themselves, for example whether someone feels better on days when they share more than they usually do. The two can differ in size and even in sign, and longitudinal multilevel models are used to separate them.

Where the site uses it

Methods: signals, inference and the limits of detecting a state change
How one could reason about recording a catharsis-like change of state: signals, features, inference and context, baselines, self-report, error costs and ethics, and why every step stays uncertain. Nothing on this site measures anyone.
Instrumented emotion: why the telemetry here is conceptual
Affective computing promises to infer emotion as if it were a system metric. The evidence on facial movements and autonomic signals, together with questions of consent, explains why every metric in this artifact is an artistic value.

Studies behind it

The works the definition rests on, with the level of evidence each was appraised at.

Curran, P. J., & Bauer, D. J. (2011). The disaggregation of within-person and between-person effects in longitudinal models of change. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.093008.100356

Level D Review

Supports the distinction between within-person and between-person effects and the use of multilevel models to separate them. Methods guidance, not evidence about any substantive effect.