Here is a list of the recent experience sampling/ecological momentary assessment from September. It’s organized in the following categories:
-
- Adolescent Studies
- Alcohol & Drugs
- Diet & Nutrition
- General Psychological Topics
- HIV
- Neuropsychology
- Organizational/Workplace Psychology
- Psychopathology
- Psychotherapy
- Physiological Sensors
- Sleep
- Smoking Cessation
- Statistics/Methodology
- Stress
Hope you find one (or a few) that strike your interest, or inspire!
Adolescent Studies
A Daily Diary Study on Adolescent Emotional Experiences: Measurement Invariance and Developmental Trajectories.
“… Analyses showed that happiness decreased from early to middle adolescence, whereas anger, sadness, and anxiety increased. Anger returned to baseline toward late adolescence. In contrast, the decrease of happiness and the increase of anxiety leveled off without reversing, whereas sadness continued to increase.”
Assessment of identity during adolescence using daily diary methods: Measurement invariance across time and sex.
“Results indicated that daily diary reports show strict measurement invariance across days, across weeks within years, across years, and across boys and girls. These results support the use of daily diary methods to assess identity at various time intervals ranging from days to years and across sex.”
Cell phone-based ecological momentary assessment of substance use context for Latino youth in outpatient treatment: Who, what, when and where.
EMA was used to find that Latino youths were more likely to use alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs “around close friends, around other users, and at a friend’s house.” Specifically, alcohol was most likely to be consumed at night or on the weekends in comparison to other drugs.
Ecological Momentary Assessment of Nonsuicidal Self-Injury in Youth With Borderline Personality Disorder.
“Changes in affect revealed a pattern of increasing negative and decreasing positive affect prior to [non-suicidal self-inury (NSSI)], with a reduction in negative and an increase in positive affect following NSSI. These changes were absent for those who did not engage in NSSI. Initial self-injurious thoughts and changes in negative and positive affect occurred a median of 35, 15, and 10 hr prior to NSSI, respectively. These findings suggest that youth with BPD have limited capacity to reflect on their motives and environment preceding NSSI.”
Emerging Pharmacologic Treatments for Adolescent Substance Use: Challenges and New Directions.
This review discusses new strategies for studying adolescent substance abuse, including the use of the experience sampling method.
Alcohol/Drugs
Cell phone-based ecological momentary assessment of substance use context for Latino youth in outpatient treatment: Who, what, when and where.
EMA was used to find that Latino youths were more likely to use alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs “around close friends, around other users, and at a friend’s house.” Specifically, alcohol was most likely to be consumed at night or on the weekends in comparison to other drugs.
Ecological momentary assessment of PTSD symptoms and alcohol use in combat veterans.
“Our results support the finding that increases in PTSD are associated with more drinking within the same 3-hr time block, but not more drinking within the following time block. Support for moderators was found: Avoidance coping strengthened the relationship between PTSD and later drinking, while self-efficacy to resist drinking weakened the relationship between PTSD and later drinking. An exploratory analysis revealed support for self-medication occurring in certain times of the day: Increased PTSD severity in the evening predicted more drinking overnight. Overall, our results provide mixed support for the self-medication hypothesis.”
Effects of alcohol, rumination, and gender on the time course of negative affect.
Experience sampling over 1.3 years (49 days total) found that ruminative cognitive style, and negative affect in the moment was related to alcohol abuse. This vulnerability was stronger in women.
Emerging Pharmacologic Treatments for Adolescent Substance Use: Challenges and New Directions.
This review discusses new strategies for studying adolescent substance abuse, including the use of the experience sampling method.
Real-time assessment of alcohol drinking and drug use in opioid-dependent polydrug users.
Individuals who used multiple elicit drugs were sampled using ambulatory assessment to observe the relationship between drinking and drug use. The study found that individuals who consumed alcohol were more likely to crave use heroin and cocaine. Further, ambulatory assessment revealed more frequent alcohol use than testing within the clinic.
The role of alcohol use in antiretroviral adherence among individuals living with HIV in South Africa: Event-level findings from a daily diary study.
Using daily phone interviews, this study found that HIV patients were less likely to take their medications if they consumed alcohol that day.
Within-day time-varying associations between behavioral cognitions and physical activity in adults.
The study characterized times during the day when working adults were likely to experience motivation-based (intention, self-efficacy, outcome expectations) positive affect.
Within-Person Associations Between Daily Motivation and Self-Efficacy and Drinking Among Problem Drinkers in Treatment.
“Individuals higher on attachment-related avoidance, attachment-related anxiety, avoidance coping, perceived community stigma, and helplessness, and individuals lower on social support had stronger associations between discrimination and current internalized stigma.”
Diet/Nutrition
No haste, more taste: An EMA study of the effects of stress, negative and positive emotions on eating behavior.
“Results revealed that higher stress led to decreased taste-eating which is in line with physiological stress-models. Time pressure during eating resulted in less taste- and more hunger-eating. In line with previous research, stronger positive emotions went along with increased taste-eating. Emotional eating style moderated the relationship between negative emotions and taste-eating as well as hunger-eating. BMI moderated the relationship between negative as well as positive emotions and hunger-eating.”
Occurrence and co-occurrence of nonsuicidal self-injury and disordered eating in a daily diary study: Which behavior, when?
“…Although previous ESM studies have shown that low self-esteem precedes the occurrence of paranoia, attachment insecurity continued to predict paranoia even when self-esteem was controlled for. The findings suggest that attachment security may be associated with a lower risk of paranoia, and that psychological interventions should address attachment beliefs and work towards establishing a sense of attachment security.”
Situational Cues and Momentary Food Environment Predict Everyday Eating Behavior in Adults With Overweight and Obesity.
“Real-time eating behavior, both in terms of main meals and snacks, is associated with internal and external cues in adults with overweight and obesity. In addition, perceptions of the momentary food environment influence eating choices, emphasizing the importance of an integrated perspective on eating behavior and obesity prevention.”
General Behavioral Science Topics
Does the Company of a Dog Influence Affective Response to Exercise? Using Ecological Momentary Assessment to Study Dog-Accompanied Physical Activity.
This study wanted to know if the positive affect related to having with a dog made owners more likely to exercise. This effect did not influence exercise, but exercising with a dog did increase in-the-moment positive affect while exercising with their dog.
Global life satisfaction predicts ambulatory affect, stress, and cortisol in daily life in working adults.
Higher global life satisfaction was related to higher in-the-moment affect, lower stress, and lower cortisol levels.
Mindfulness and mood stimulate each other in an upward spiral: a mindful walking intervention using experience sampling.
“This is the first time that ESM was used to assess interactions between state mindfulness and momentary affect during a mindfulness intervention of several consecutive days, showing an upward spiral effect.”
Moment-to-Moment Within-Person Associations Between Acts of Discrimination and Internalized Stigma in People Living With HIV: An Experience Sampling Study.
“Individuals higher on attachment-related avoidance, attachment-related anxiety, avoidance coping, perceived community stigma, and helplessness, and individuals lower on social support had stronger associations between discrimination and current internalized stigma.”
Physical Activity, Mind Wandering, Affect, and Sleep: An Ecological Momentary Assessment.
Mobile phone-based EMA found that mind wandering in the moment (moderated by positive affect) was related to physical activity in the near future. Oversleeping was related to decreased physical activity the next day.
Power in everyday life.
Mobile phone-based EMA found that mind wandering in the moment (moderated by positive affect) was related to physical activity in the near future. Oversleeping was related to decreased physical activity the next day.
Power in everyday life.
Mobile phone-based EMA found that mind wandering in the moment (moderated by positive affect) was related to physical activity in the near future. Oversleeping was related to decreased physical activity the next day.
Spatio-temporal determinants of mental health and well-being: advances in geographically-explicit ecological momentary assessment (GEMA).
This review discusses the possibilities of coordinating of geographically explicit momentary assessment research, and ecological momentary assessment research. They found there is great promise in the methods, but there is need for refining methodological standards.
Which Daily Experiences Can Foster Well-Being at Work? A Diary Study on the Interplay Between Flow Experiences, Affective Commitment, and Self-Control Demands.
“On days with high levels of flow experiences, employees were better able to cope with self-control demands whereas self-control demands translated into impaired well-being when employees experienced lower levels of day-specific flow experiences.”
Within-day time-varying associations between behavioral cognitions and physical activity in adults.
The study characterized times during the day when working adults were likely to experience motivation-based (intention, self-efficacy, outcome expectations) positive affect.
HIV
Moment-to-Moment Within-Person Associations Between Acts of Discrimination and Internalized Stigma in People Living With HIV: An Experience Sampling Study.
“Individuals higher on attachment-related avoidance, attachment-related anxiety, avoidance coping, perceived community stigma, and helplessness, and individuals lower on social support had stronger associations between discrimination and current internalized stigma.”
The role of alcohol use in antiretroviral adherence among individuals living with HIV in South Africa: Event-level findings from a daily diary study.
Using daily phone interviews, this study found that HIV patients were less likely to take their medications if they consumed alcohol that day.
Neuropsychology
Acceptability and feasibility of a visual working memory task in an ecological momentary assessment paradigm.
“As expected, EMA [visual working memory] performance was positively associated with laboratory measures of auditory and VWM, and these relationships persisted after adjusting for predicted intelligence.”
Fluctuations of Attentional Networks and Default Mode Network during the Resting State Reflect Variations in Cognitive States: Evidence from a Novel Resting-state Experience Sampling Method.
Participants’ brain activity was monitored during resting state, and they were asked questions about their mental states via experience sampling during this time. The study found relationships between specific resting-state brain activity, and certain mental states.
Organizational/Workplace
Application of ecological momentary assessment in workplace health evaluation.
EMA was used to monitor posture, musculoskeletal issues, social interactions, task undertaken, and mood, in the workplace. The study found EMA was an effective way to track these variables in real-time.
Job Resources and Recovery Experiences to Face Difficulties in Emotion Regulation at Work: A Diary Study Among Nurses.
“Nurses’ daily difficulties in emotion regulation have a direct effect on daily emotional exhaustion at work, and on fatigue and negative affect at home at night. We also found that coworker support, psychological detachment and relaxation minimize the unfavorable effects on well-being of difficulties in emotion regulation.”
Longitudinal Study of the Feasibility of Using Ecological Momentary Assessment to Study Teacher Stress: Objective and Self-Reported Measures.
“[The authors] propose a joint modeling technique for estimating the time-varying association between two intensively measured longitudinal responses: a continuous one and a binary one.… The proposed method is illustrated by an empirical analysis of smoking cessation data, in which the question of interest is to investigate the association between urge to smoke, continuous response, and the status of alcohol use, the binary response, and how this association varies over time.”
Which Daily Experiences Can Foster Well-Being at Work? A Diary Study on the Interplay Between Flow Experiences, Affective Commitment, and Self-Control Demands.
“On days with high levels of flow experiences, employees were better able to cope with self-control demands whereas self-control demands translated into impaired well-being when employees experienced lower levels of day-specific flow experiences.”
Psychopathology
Affective Dynamics in Psychopathology.
“Studies that explore how these affective dynamics are associated with psychological disorders and symptoms are reviewed, and we emphasize that these affective processes are within a nexus of other components of emotion regulation.”
Ecological Momentary Assessment of Nonsuicidal Self-Injury in Youth With Borderline Personality Disorder.
“Changes in affect revealed a pattern of increasing negative and decreasing positive affect prior to [non-suicidal self-inury (NSSI)], with a reduction in negative and an increase in positive affect following NSSI. These changes were absent for those who did not engage in NSSI. Initial self-injurious thoughts and changes in negative and positive affect occurred a median of 35, 15, and 10 hr prior to NSSI, respectively. These findings suggest that youth with BPD have limited capacity to reflect on their motives and environment preceding NSSI.”
Ecological momentary assessment of PTSD symptoms and alcohol use in combat veterans.
“Our results support the finding that increases in PTSD are associated with more drinking within the same 3-hr time block, but not more drinking within the following time block. Support for moderators was found: Avoidance coping strengthened the relationship between PTSD and later drinking, while self-efficacy to resist drinking weakened the relationship between PTSD and later drinking. An exploratory analysis revealed support for self-medication occurring in certain times of the day: Increased PTSD severity in the evening predicted more drinking overnight. Overall, our results provide mixed support for the self-medication hypothesis.”
Expressed Emotion and behaviourally controlling interactions in the daily life of dyads experiencing psychosis.
“When measured using an ecologically valid methodology, momentary behaviourally controlling interactions within dyads experiencing psychosis can impact on patients’ affect and symptoms.”
High resolution examination of the role of sleep disturbance in predicting functioning and psychotic symptoms in schizophrenia: A novel experience sampling study.
“For the first time, [the study] show[ed] that sleep disturbance is a predictor of next-day impaired functioning and psychotic symptom severity in people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Negative affect and a fluctuating jumping to conclusions bias predict subsequent paranoia in daily life: An online experience sampling study.
A tendency to jump to conclusions and negative affect are known to be related to paranoia. Negative affect as a precursor to paranoia has been studied using experience sampling, but jumping to conclusions has not. The study found that jumping to conclusions did predict paranoia, although it was not a mediator between negative affect and paranoia.
Occurrence and co-occurrence of nonsuicidal self-injury and disordered eating in a daily diary study: Which behavior, when?
“…Although previous ESM studies have shown that low self-esteem precedes the occurrence of paranoia, attachment insecurity continued to predict paranoia even when self-esteem was controlled for. The findings suggest that attachment security may be associated with a lower risk of paranoia, and that psychological interventions should address attachment beliefs and work towards establishing a sense of attachment security.”
Tracking Potentiating States of Dissociation: An Intensive Clinical Case Study of Sleep, Daydreaming, Mood, and Depersonalization/Derealization.
Participants with depersonalization/derealization disorder were asked questions about their dissociative symptoms, daydreaming, mood, and sleep. The study found that quality, but not length, of sleep predicted fewer dissociative symptoms.
Where the Narcissistic Mind Wanders: Increased Self-Related Thoughts Are More Positive and Future Oriented.
This study validated that people with narcissism experienced “(1) more mind-wandering in participants with higher levels of narcissism and (2) a difference in the content of these thoughts (more self- and other-related, past and future oriented, negative content). Critically, (3) in high levels of narcissism, the self-related thoughts were associated with more positive valence and were also more future oriented.” Further, these individuals were more likely to experience rumination, a vulnerability factor for the narcissism.
Psychotherapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Daily Life Training: A Feasibility Study of an mHealth Intervention.
Experience sampling was used to help outpatients be aware of, and practice ACT in Daily Life training for acceptance and commitment therapy in their daily lives. The intervention was not deemed effective during this study, but the authors recommended further clinical trials, as the method holds promise.
An n=1 Clinical Network Analysis of Symptoms and Treatment in Psychosis.
“Construction of intensive ESM time series in a single patient is feasible and informative, particularly if represented as a network, showing both quantitative and qualitative changes as a function of relapse.”
Borderline Personality Disorder and the Effects of Instructed Emotional Avoidance or Acceptance in Daily Life.
Using the avoidance method of coping with negative emotions led to reduced maladaptive behaviors in individuals with borderline personality disorder.
Daily affect dynamics predict early response in CBT: Feasibility and predictive validity of EMA for outpatient psychotherapy.
“PA/NA ratios, as well as fluctuations in NA predicted early treatment response, even when adjusting for initial impairment. In contrast, mean levels of NA or PA, as well as fluctuations in PA did not predict treatment response… The results suggest that pre-treatment affect dynamics could provide valuable information for predicting treatment response independent of initial impairment levels. Better predictions of early treatment response help to improve treatment choices early in the treatment progress.”
Emerging Pharmacologic Treatments for Adolescent Substance Use: Challenges and New Directions.
This review discusses new strategies for studying adolescent substance abuse, including the use of the experience sampling method.
The dynamics of attachment insecurity and paranoid thoughts: An experience sampling study.
“…Although previous ESM studies have shown that low self-esteem precedes the occurrence of paranoia, attachment insecurity continued to predict paranoia even when self-esteem was controlled for. The findings suggest that attachment security may be associated with a lower risk of paranoia, and that psychological interventions should address attachment beliefs and work towards establishing a sense of attachment security.”
Within-Person Associations Between Daily Motivation and Self-Efficacy and Drinking Among Problem Drinkers in Treatment.
“Individuals higher on attachment-related avoidance, attachment-related anxiety, avoidance coping, perceived community stigma, and helplessness, and individuals lower on social support had stronger associations between discrimination and current internalized stigma.”
Physiological Sensors
Affective Dynamics in Psychopathology.
“Studies that explore how these affective dynamics are associated with psychological disorders and symptoms are reviewed, and we emphasize that these affective processes are within a nexus of other components of emotion regulation.”
Does the Company of a Dog Influence Affective Response to Exercise? Using Ecological Momentary Assessment to Study Dog-Accompanied Physical Activity.
This study wanted to know if the positive affect related to having with a dog made owners more likely to exercise. This effect did not influence exercise, but exercising with a dog did increase in-the-moment positive affect while exercising with their dog.
Functional changes in Becker muscular dystrophy: implications for clinical trials in dystrophinopathies.
This study used ambulatory assessment, among other methods, to assess the functional decline due to three specific genetic mutations in children with Becker muscular dystrophy. Two mutations led to mild or absent symptoms, while the third led to the more severe form of the disease.
Physical Activity, Mind Wandering, Affect, and Sleep: An Ecological Momentary Assessment.
Mobile phone-based EMA found that mind wandering in the moment (moderated by positive affect) was related to physical activity in the near future. Oversleeping was related to decreased physical activity the next day.
Power in everyday life.
Mobile phone-based EMA found that mind wandering in the moment (moderated by positive affect) was related to physical activity in the near future. Oversleeping was related to decreased physical activity the next day.
Psychophysiological Assessment of Social Stress in Natural and Laboratory Situations: Using the Experience Sampling Method and Additional Heart Rate Measures.
“Findings suggest that ambulatory assessment techniques successfully contribute to the validation of a common social stress task.”