Friday 24 July 15:40 - 17:10

Hall: 16 - Room 13 SA

Chair and Discussant: Donati Maria Anna

Division: Division 2: Psychological Assessment and Evaluation

The symposium proposes studies from different perspectives, disciplines, and methodologies, focused on exploring innovative approaches to psychometric assessment aimed at moving beyond traditional self-report measurement. The applications regard psychological assessment but also provide important insights for intervention practice. Different methodologies are proposed: Large Language Model embeddings and biosensor-based physiological monitoring, presented by Professor Davide Marocco; behavioral computerized task (i.e., the expanded version of the Cups Task), provided by Professor Joshua Weller; experimental tasks, presented by Professor Anna van Duijvenvoorde; experiments in laboratory settings associated with mobile phone applications and sensor technologies applied in natural environments, provided by Dr. Antons; and Extended Reality (Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality), presented by Professor Chirico. The various methodologies are applied for the assessment of various psychological constructs and processes: respectively, personality; decision-making; effort, i.e., the willingness to exert effortful actions for themselves and for others; habits, intended as learned stimulus-response associations that develop through repeated behaviors and eventually become automatic, despite shifts in motivation or outcomes; emotional resilience, distress, and anxiety. Findings have been obtained from studies conducted with general (older adults, adults, young adults, adolescents, and children) and clinical populations (clinical and neuropsychological patients, maltreated adolescents; oncological patients), and from different psychological perspectives (psychometrics, behavioral decision making, developmental psychology, general psychology). Overall, the contributions demonstrate the utility of the new methodologies in overcoming the limitations of traditional self-report measures, in terms of improving psychological assessment by i) enhancing test design and reducing response biases, ii) providing differential predictive validity with respect to behavioral real-world outcomes, iii) understanding the core mechanisms underlying the specific measured construct; iv) assuring high sensitivity and specificity in underlying cognitive-emotional processes, v) contributing to personalized psychological care. Thus, the symposium is fully in line with the theme of the Congress by proposing new directions in appliedpsychology.Thetalkswillbefollowedbyadiscussionaimedat underlyingtheadvantagesoftheapplicationofinnovativemethodologiesintermsofpsychometricpotentialwithregardvariouspsychologicalconstructsundtargetsand clinicalutilityindifferent settings.Futureresearchdirectionswillbediscussed.