scholarly journals Some recommendations on the use of daily life methods in affective science

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Kuppens ◽  
Egon Dejonckheere ◽  
Elise Katherine Kalokerinos ◽  
Peter Koval

Real-world emotions are often more vivid, personally meaningful, and consequential than those evoked in the lab. Therefore, studying emotions in daily life is essential to test theories, discover new phenomena, and understand healthy emotional functioning; in short, to move affective science forward. The past decades have seen a surge of research using daily diary, experience sampling, or ecological momentary assessment methods to study emotional phenomena in daily life. In this paper, we will share some of the insights we have gained from our collective experience applying such daily life methods to study everyday affective processes. We highlight what we see as important considerations and caveats involved in using these methods and formulate recommendations to improve their use in future research. These insights focus on the importance of (i) theory and hypothesis-testing; (ii) measurement; (iii) timescale; and (iv) context, when studying emotions in their natural habitat.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saeideh Heshmati ◽  
Zita Oravecz

Most assessments of well-being have relied on retrospective accounts, measured by global evaluative well-being scales. Following the recent debates focused on the assessment of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being based on the elements of the PERMA theory, the current study aimed to shed further light onto the measurement of PERMA elements in daily life and their temporal dynamics. Through an Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) design (N=160), we examined the dynamics of change (e.g., baselines and intra-individual variability) in the PERMA elements using the mPERMA measure, which is an EMA-adapted version of the PERMA Profiler. Findings revealed that momentary experiences of well-being, quantified via PERMA elements, map onto their corresponding hedonic or eudaimonic well-being components, and its dynamical features provide novel insights into predicting global well-being. This work offers avenues for future research to assess well-being in real-time and real-world contexts in ecologically valid ways, while eliminating recall bias.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Vize ◽  
Whitney R. Ringwald ◽  
Elizabeth A. Edershile ◽  
Aidan G.C. Wright

Interpersonal Antagonism is one of the major domains of maladaptive personality. Structural-based investigations of Antagonism have generally been consistent in highlighting the more specific antagonistic traits (e.g., manipulativeness, callousness) that underlie the broader domain. However, less work has attempted to merge structural and functional accounts of Antagonism to assess how specific antagonistic traits manifest in daily life. This exploratory study examined how Antagonism and its specific features relate to outcomes assessed using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methods. Across four independent EMA samples (N range=297-396; total N = 1,365; observations per outcome=5,419-17,735), we investigated how antagonistic traits related to theoretically relevant, EMA-based outcomes (e.g., affect, empathy, coldness-warmth in interpersonal interactions). Results showed robust findings across samples and operationalizations of Antagonism (e.g., Antagonism’s relation with negative affect), along with more mixed results (e.g., Antagonism’s relation with different measures of empathy). We discuss future research directions for structural and functional accounts of Antagonism.


2021 ◽  
pp. 216770262110135
Author(s):  
Colin E. Vize ◽  
Whitney R. Ringwald ◽  
Elizabeth A. Edershile ◽  
Aidan G. C. Wright

Interpersonal antagonism is one of the major domains of maladaptive personality. Structure-based investigations of antagonism have generally been consistent in highlighting the more specific antagonistic traits (e.g., manipulativeness, callousness) that underlie the broader domain. However, less work has attempted to merge structural and functional accounts of antagonism to assess how specific antagonistic traits manifest in daily life. This exploratory study examined how antagonism and its specific features relate to outcomes assessed using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methods. Across four independent EMA samples ( N range = 297–396; total N = 1,365; observations per outcome = 5,419–17,735), we investigated how antagonistic traits related to theoretically relevant, EMA-based outcomes (e.g., affect, empathy, coldness-warmth in interpersonal interactions). Results showed robust findings across samples and operationalizations of antagonism (e.g., antagonism’s relation with negative affect), along with more mixed results (e.g., antagonism’s RELATION with different measures of empathy). We discuss future research directions for structural and functional accounts of antagonism.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Veilleux ◽  
Elise Warner ◽  
Danielle Baker ◽  
Kaitlyn Chamberlain

This study examined if beliefs about emotion change across emotional contexts in daily life, and investigated whether people with prominent features of borderline personality pathology experience greater shifts in emotion beliefs during emotional states compared to people without borderline features. Undergraduate participants with (n = 49) and without borderline features (n = 50) completed a one week ecological momentary assessment study where 7x/day they provided ratings of affect, nine different beliefs about emotion and indicators of momentary self-efficacy. Results indicated a significant between-person element to emotion beliefs, supporting the notion of beliefs as relatively schematic. In addition, people with borderline features generally experienced greater instability of beliefs over time compared to people without borderline features. In addition, most of the beliefs about emotion shifted with either positive or negative affect. For many of the emotion beliefs, the relationships between affect and belief were moderated by borderline group. Finally, momentary beliefs about emotion also predicted momentary self-efficacy for tolerating distress and exerting willpower. Taken together, results confirm that beliefs about emotion can fluctuate in daily life and that there are implications for emotion beliefs for people who struggle with emotion regulation and impulsivity (i.e., people with features of borderline personality) as well as for self-efficacy in tolerating emotion and engaging in goal-directed action.


Assessment ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (8) ◽  
pp. 1683-1698 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stacey B. Scott ◽  
Martin J. Sliwinski ◽  
Matthew Zawadzki ◽  
Robert S. Stawski ◽  
Jinhyuk Kim ◽  
...  

Despite widespread interest in variance in affect, basic questions remain pertaining to the relative proportions of between-person and within-person variance, the contribution of days and moments, and the reliability of these estimates. We addressed these questions by decomposing negative affect and positive affect variance across three levels (person, day, moment), and calculating reliability using a coordinated analysis of seven daily diary, ecological momentary assessment (EMA), and diary-EMA hybrid studies (across studies age = 18-84 years, total Npersons = 2,103, total Nobservations = 45,065). Across studies, within-person variance was sizeable (negative affect: 45% to 66%, positive affect: 25% to 74%); in EMA more within-person variance was attributable to momentary rather than daily level. Reliability was adequate to high at all levels of analysis (within-person: .73-.91; between-person: .96-1.00) despite different items and designs. We discuss the implications of these results for the design of future intensive studies of affect variance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 765-774 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Roefs ◽  
B. Boh ◽  
G. Spanakis ◽  
C. Nederkoorn ◽  
L. H. J. M. Lemmens ◽  
...  

Nutrients ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 2696 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Maugeri ◽  
Martina Barchitta

The ecological momentary assessment (EMA) of eating behaviors represents an innovative, detailed and valid approach to capture the complexity of food intake and to overcome limitations of traditional dietary assessment methods. Moreover, EMA studies might generate a large variety of data (e.g., dietary, behavioral, physical, sociopsychological, and contextual information), thereby enabling to examine concurrent exposures and events. Due to the increasing number of studies in this field of research, here we systematically reviewed EMA methods for the assessment of dietary intake in epidemiological studies, and discussed implications and perspectives for future research. Our study summarized several protocols and platforms that may be applied to assess diet in terms of eating frequency, choices, and habits. Nearly 38% of studies used an event-contingent strategy by asking participants to report foods and beverages consumed in real-time at each eating occasion. Instead, approximately 55% of studies used a signal-contingent prompting approach that notified the participants to record their dietary consumption. The remaining studies used a combination of event- and signal-contingent protocols to compare their accuracy or to improve the assessment of dietary data. Although both approaches might improve the accuracy and ecological validity of dietary assessment—also reducing the burden for participants—some limitations should nevertheless be considered. Despite these limitations, our systematic review pointed out that EMA can be applied in various fields of nutritional epidemiology, from the identification of determinants of dietary habits in healthy people to the management of patients with eating or metabolic disorders. However, more efforts should be encouraged to improve the validity and the reliability of EMA and to provide further technological innovations for public health research and interventions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 1019-1027 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sydney G O’Connor ◽  
Wangjing Ke ◽  
Eldin Dzubur ◽  
Susan Schembre ◽  
Genevieve F Dunton

AbstractObjectiveTo provide preliminary evidence in support of using ecological momentary assessment (EMA), a real-time data capture method involving repeated assessments, to measure dietary intake in children by examining the concordance of children’s dietary reports through EMA and 24 h recall.DesignChildren completed eight days of EMA surveys, reporting on recent dietary intake of four pre-specified food categories (‘Fruits or Vegetables’, ‘Chips or Fries’, ‘Pastries or Sweets’, ‘Soda or Energy Drinks’), and completed two 24 h recalls during the same period. Concordance of children’s reports of intake during matched two-hour time windows from EMA and 24 h dietary recall was assessed using cross-tabulation. Multilevel logistic regression examined potential person-level (i.e. sex, age, ethnicity and BMI category) predictors of concordance.SettingChildren in Los Angeles County, USA, enrolled in the Mothers’ and Their Children’s Health (MATCH) study.SubjectsOne hundred and forty-four 144 children (53 % female; mean age 9·6 (sd 0·9) years; 34·0 % overweight/obese).ResultsTwo-hour concordance varied by food category, ranging from 64·9 % for ‘Fruits/Vegetables’ to 89·9 % for ‘Soda/Energy Drinks’. In multilevel models, overweight/obese (v. lean) was associated with greater odds (OR; 95 % CI) of concordant reporting for ‘Soda/Energy Drinks’ (2·01; 1·06, 4·04) and ‘Pastries/Sweets’ (1·61; 1·03, 2·52). Odds of concordant reporting were higher for Hispanic (v. non-Hispanic) children for ‘Pastries/Sweets’ (1·55; 1·02, 2·36) and for girls (v. boys) for ‘Fruits/Vegetables’ (1·36; 1·01, 1·83).ConclusionsConcordance differed by food category as well as by person-level characteristics. Future research should continue to explore use of EMA to facilitate dietary assessment in children.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document