Families Under the Microscope: Repeated Sampling of Perceptions, Experiences, Biology, and Behavior

Families are not frozen dioramas; they are alive, active, and changing. Models of real‐life marital and family processes require many moving pieces. An intensive repeated measures approach reaches beyond static representations of the family toward more dynamic models that depict “life as it is lived.” The appearance of studies that use diaries and biological sampling in everyday life has burgeoned in the family research literature. These methods are part of a larger class of naturalistic methods that assess families in action and that includes direct video and audio recordings of families in their everyday environments. This article summarizes research that uses diaries, observations, and biological data collected over time in natural settings to study families. It provides an overview of the major research questions, designs, methods of data collection, and statistical models used in those literatures. Theoretical contributions and next steps in naturalistic research on families are discussed.