165 General Discussion 7 field, insight into their response processes is vital, because participants’ input is the foundation for analyses upon which we base our conclusions. Personalize research Take it Personal! This credo does not only apply to the intervention described in Chapters 2 and 3 but is also a core strength of our personalized research approach. The main strength of this dissertation is that methods were both standardized and personalized, in various stages of the research design. Chapters 2 and 3 relied solely on standardized measurements, but we then personalized the outcome measures. That is, substance use frequency and -severity could be one of three substance types: alcohol, cannabis, and other illicit drugs. Per individual, we evaluated change in the most problematic drug use of these three types at baseline because in practice the use of this substance was most addressed in the intervention. In Chapter 4, we employed a measurement strategy that was both personalized and standardized. In Chapter 5, we personalized the analysis stage by estimating the idiographic network structures of standardized items. Chapter 6 featured personalization from the measurements through the analysis stage. Personalization is not just an alternative to standardization; it is a better alternative. Standardizing methods is done to enable robust and generalizable conclusions about a phenomenon in a group. Ultimately, however, the commendable goal of doing justice to the group as best as possible detaches scientists from any personal relevance within that group. Consider the Youth Self Report (YSR; Achenbach, 1991) we used in Chapter 3. This survey is a psychometrically sound instrument for people with a mild intellectual disability to measure the phenomenon of behavioral problems. Yet idiographic research reveals that behavioral problems are too heterogeneous to capture in one survey. In a study by Weisz et al. (2011), youth receiving care identified their top three problems, which were contrasted with their YSR scores. They found that 79% of self-identified top problems did not correspond to any items on any domain in the clinical ranges. On the other hand, personalized assessment produces highly diverse items, making it difficult to yield generalizable knowledge about behavioral phenomena. There is a fundamental difference between research that aims to understand a (behavioral) phenomenon at the group level and research aimed at a person. Our combination of both personalized and standardized items in EMA ensured personal relevance and the option to compare individuals on the same behavioral phenomena. Future research is encouraged to do the same. Moreover, if the change pattern itself is considered the main phenomenon
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