Retrospection and Self-Report in Longitudinal Studies

When we ask subjects about past their behavior, what period of time should we ask them to recall? If we ask an adolescent about their depressive symptoms in the past week, we will obviously get different information than if we asked about the past year. If we wish to make inferences about change over time, choosing this recall period wisely matters. This project, the newest in the MADLab, will use simulation to try to empirically quantify the effects of choosing different recall periods on the accuracy of inferences in longitudinal studies.