scholarly journals The benefits and limits of social interactions during COVID-19 lockdown

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Forbes ◽  
Ekaterina Pronizius ◽  
Anja Christine Feneberg ◽  
Urs Nater ◽  
Giulio Piperno ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Ecological Momentary Assessment ◽  
Time Effect ◽  
Smartphone App ◽  
Lower Stress ◽  
Assessment Approach ◽  
Ecological Momentary ◽  
Audio Video ◽  
Momentary Assessment

BACKGROUND: Social interactions are vital for our wellbeing, particularly during times of stress. PURPOSE: We investigated the real-time effect of social interactions on changes in stress and mood using an ecological momentary assessment approach in 732 participants during COVID-19 lockdown in spring 2020 and in a subsample of these participants (n= 281) during a further lockdown in winter 2020. METHODS: Participants reported their stress and mood in a smartphone app five times per day for seven days and indicated the nature and frequency of their recent social interactions. RESULTS: Overall, social interactions and their frequency were associated with enhanced momentary mood. In person interactions, but not those that were not in person (e.g., via audio, video, or text), were linked to lower stress, especially if they were with closer others. Individuals scoring high on trait loneliness benefited least from social interactions in terms of their momentary mood, whereas those scoring high on trait depressive symptoms benefited the most. Our key findings replicated across both lockdowns. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates the benefits and limits of social interactions for improving momentary mood and stress during psychologically demanding periods and highlight how clinically relevant individual differences can modulate these effects.

Cross-Study, Cross-Method Associations Between Negative Urgency and Internalizing Symptoms

Assessment ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 107319112098388
Author(s):  
Kevin M. King ◽  
Max A. Halvorson ◽  
Kevin S. Kuehn ◽  
Madison C. Feil ◽  
Liliana J. Lengua
Keyword(s):  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Ecological Momentary Assessment ◽  
Internalizing Symptoms ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Anxiety Symptoms ◽  
Negative Emotionality ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Negative Urgency ◽  
Ecological Momentary ◽  
Momentary Assessment

There is a small body of research that has connected individual differences in negative urgency, the tendency to report rash actions in response to negative emotions, with self-report depressive and anxiety symptoms. Despite the conceptual overlap of negative urgency with negative emotionality, the tendency to experience frequent and intense negative emotions, even fewer studies have examined whether the association of negative urgency with internalizing symptoms hold when controlling for negative emotionality. In the current study, we estimated the bivariate association between negative urgency and internalizing symptoms, tested whether they remained significant after partialling out negative emotionality, and tested whether these effects generalized to real-time experiences of negative emotions. We used data from five independent samples of high school and college students, assessed with global self-report ( n = 1,297) and ecological momentary assessment ( n = 195). Results indicated that in global self-report data, negative urgency was moderately and positively associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms, and the partial association with depressive symptoms (but not anxiety symptoms) controlling for negative emotionality remained significant and moderate in magnitude. This pattern was replicated in ecological momentary assessment data. Negative urgency may convey risk for depressive symptoms, independent of the effects of negative emotionality.

scholarly journals Understanding the Office: Using Ecological Momentary Assessment to Measure Activities, Posture, Social Interactions, Mood, and Work Performance at the Workplace

Buildings ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lina Engelen ◽  
Fabian Held
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Ecological Momentary Assessment ◽  
Work Performance ◽  
Response Rate ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Invasive Method ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Ecological Momentary ◽  
Momentary Assessment

Studying the workplace often involves using observational, self-report recall, or focus group tools, which all have their established advantages and disadvantages. There is, however, a need for a readily available, low-invasive method that can provide longitudinal, repeated, and concurrent in-the-moment information to understand the workplace well. In this study, ecological momentary assessment (EMA) was used to collect 508 real-time responses about activities, posture, work performance, social interactions, and mood in 64 adult office workers in three Australian workplaces. The response rate was 53%, and the time to fill out the survey was 50 seconds on average. On average, the participants were sitting, standing, and walking in 84%, 9%, and 7% of survey instances, respectively. The participants reported they were working alone at their desks in 55% of all reported instances. Reported mood varied up to nine points within one person over the course of the post-occupancy observations. EMA can be used to paint a rich picture of occupants’ experiences and perceptions and to gain invaluable understanding of temporal patterns of the workplace, how the space is used, and how aspects of the workplace interact. This information can be used to make improvements to the physical and social workspaces and enhance occupants’ work performance and mood.

scholarly journals What Do People With Schizophrenia Do All Day? Ecological Momentary Assessment of Real-World Functioning in Schizophrenia

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Granholm ◽  
Jason L Holden ◽  
Tanya Mikhael ◽  
Peter C Link ◽  
Joel Swendsen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Real World ◽  
Ecological Momentary Assessment ◽  
Reliability And Validity ◽  
Supported Housing ◽  
Self Report ◽  
New Treatments ◽  
Test Retest Reliability ◽  
Ecological Momentary ◽  
Momentary Assessment

Abstract Schizophrenia is a major cause of disability worldwide. As new treatments for functioning are tested, the need grows to demonstrate real-world functioning gains. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) may provide a more ecologically valid measure of functioning. In this study, smartphone-based EMA was used to signal participants with schizophrenia (N = 100) and controls (N = 71) 7 times a day for 7 days to respond to brief questionnaires about social interactions and functioning behaviors. Excellent adherence was found, with both groups completing an average of 85% of surveys and only 3% of participants with schizophrenia excluded for poor adherence. Four-week test–retest reliability was high (r = .83 for total productive behaviors). Relative to controls, participants with schizophrenia reported significantly less total productive activity (d = 1.2), fewer social interactions (d = 0.3), more nonproductive behaviors (d = 1.0; watching TV, resting), and more time at home (d = 0.8). Within the schizophrenia group, participants living independently showed better functioning on EMA relative to participants in supported housing (d = 0.8) and participants engaged in vocational activities showed better functioning than individuals not engaged in vocational activities (d = 0.55). Modest correlations were found between EMA and an in-lab self-report measure of functioning activities performed in the community, but not between EMA and measures of functional capacity or potential. This study demonstrated the feasibility, sensitivity reliability, and validity of EMA methods to assess functioning in schizophrenia. EMA provides a much-needed measure of what individuals with schizophrenia are actually doing in real-world contexts. These results also suggest that there may be important disjunctions between indices of abilities and actual real-world functioning.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document