Examining the Interplay of Processes Across Multiple Time-Scales: Illustration With the Intraindividual Study of Affect, Health, and Interpersonal Behavior (iSAHIB)

Interindividual Differences in Cognitive Variability Are Ubiquitous and Distinct From Mean Performance in a Battery of Eleven Tasks

Our performance on cognitive tasks fluctuates: the same individual completing the same task will differ in their response's moment-to-moment. For decades cognitive fluctuations have been implicitly ignored - treated as measurement error - with a focus instead on aggregates such as mean performance. Leveraging dense trial-by-trial data and novel time-series methods we explored variability as an intrinsically important phenotype. Across eleven cognitive tasks with over 7 million trials, we found highly reliable interindividual differences in cognitive variability in every task we examined. These differences are both qualitatively and quantitatively distinct from mean performance. Moreover, we found that a single dimension for variability across tasks was inadequate, demonstrating that previously posited global mechanisms for cognitive variability are at least partially incomplete. Our findings indicate that variability is a fundamental part of cognition - with the potential to offer novel insights into developmental processes.

Associations between morning affect and later-day smoking urges and behavior

OBJECTIVE

Affective experiences are associated with smoking urges and behavior. Few studies have examined the temporal nature of these associations within a day, such as whether positive and negative affect in the morning are associated with smoking urges and behavior later in the day.

METHOD

Participants (N = 63; MAge = 50 years, 48% female; 60% White) were randomized into one of three smoking cessation interventions and answered up to five daily ecological momentary assessments for 28 days during a quit attempt (M = 21.0 days, SD = 7.1). Before analysis, scores for morning positive and negative affect and later-day smoking urges and behavior were calculated.

RESULTS

On days when individuals' morning positive affect was higher than usual, later-day smoking urges tended to be lower than usual. In contrast, on days when individuals' morning negative affect was higher than usual, later-day smoking urges tended to be higher than usual, and smoking was more likely. Further, individuals who had higher characteristic morning positive affect tended to have less intense later-day smoking urges, whereas those who tended to have higher characteristic morning negative affect tended to have more intense later-day smoking urges.

CONCLUSIONS

Morning positive and negative affect were associated with later-day smoking urges, and morning negative affect was related to later-day smoking behavior. Future research should examine whether interventions that boost positive affect on mornings when it is lower than usual and attenuate negative affect on mornings when it is higher than usual, may reduce the intensity of smoking urges and the likelihood of smoking later in the day. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Enduring Bonds: Duration and Contact in Close Relationships in Late Life

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Older adults maintain ties to long-duration social partners, some with whom have regular contact and some with whom have little contact. We asked whether these ties with little contact still offer a sense of connection and security, and buffer the effects of interpersonal stress in daily life. Helping older adults foster these ties may improve their mental health.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

Participants (n = 313) aged 65+ completed a baseline interview reporting duration and contact frequency of their closest ties. Then, participants completed ecological momentary assessments every 3 hr for 5-6 days, reporting their social encounters and mood.

RESULTS

We classified ties according to duration (10+ years = long vs shorter duration) and frequency of contact (at least once a month = active vs dormant). Throughout the day, participants were more likely to have stressful encounters with long-duration active ties. Encounters with active ties were associated with more positive mood (regardless of duration) and encounters with long-duration dormant ties with more negative mood. Having more active ties buffered effects of interpersonal stress on mood, but more long-duration dormant ties exacerbated these effects.

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

Supporting social integration theory, ties with frequent contact were associated with positive mood. Surprisingly, long-duration ties with infrequent contact exacerbated effects of interpersonal stress on mood. Older adults who lack contact with long-duration social partners may be more sensitive to interpersonal stress. Future interventions might focus on phone or electronic media to increase contact with long-duration social partners.

Studying Daily Social Interaction Quantity and Quality in Relation to Depression Change: A Multi-Phase Experience Sampling Study

Day-to-day social life and mental health are intertwined. Yet, no study to date has assessed how the quantity and quality of social interactions in daily life are associated with changes in depressive symptoms. This study examines these links using multiple-timescale data (iSHAIB data set; N = 133), where the level of depressive symptoms was measured before and after three 21-day periods of event-contingent experience sampling of individuals' interpersonal interactions (T = 64,112). We find weak between-person effects for interaction quantity and perceiving interpersonal warmth of others on changes in depressive symptoms over the 21-day period, but strong and robust evidence for overwarming-a novel construct representing the self-perceived difference between one's own and interaction partner's level of interpersonal warmth. The findings highlight the important role qualitative aspects of social interactions may play in the progression of individuals' depressive symptoms.

Switching it up: Activity diversity and cognitive functioning in later life

Participating in a broad and balanced range of daily activities (i.e., activity diversity) has been associated with better cognitive functioning in later life. One possible explanation for this finding is that high levels of activity diversity are merely a proxy for being more physically active, a factor robustly linked to cognitive health. The present study examined whether activity diversity has a unique association with cognitive functioning beyond physical movement. Community-dwelling older adults (N = 252, Mage = 73.55 years, SD = 6.39) completed a cognitive battery and then responded to ecological momentary assessments of their participation in 10 common activity types (e.g., reading, chores, social visits) every 3 hr for 5-6 days. They also wore accelerometers to track daily physical movement. Multiple regression models revealed that greater diversity in daily activities was related to higher cognitive functioning even after adjusting for physical movement and other covariates such as education level. This study further clarifies the unique relationship of activity diversity, beyond physical movement, with cognition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Separating Long-Term Equilibrium Adaptation from Short-Term Self-Regulation Dynamics Using Latent Differential Equations

Self-regulating systems change along different timescales. Within a given week, a depressed person's affect might oscillate around a low equilibrium point. However, when the timeframe is expanded to capture the year during which they onboarded antidepressant medication, their equilibrium and oscillatory patterns might reorganize around a higher affective point. To simultaneously account for the meaningful change processes that happen at different time scales in complex self-regulatory systems, we propose a single model that combines a second-order linear differential equation for short timescale regulation and a first-order linear differential equation for long timescale adaptation of equilibrium. This model allows for individual-level moderation of short-timescale model parameters. The model is tested in a simulation study which shows that, surprisingly, the short and long timescales can fully overlap and the model still converges to the reasonable estimates. Finally, an application of this model to self-regulation of emotional well-being in recent widows is presented and discussed.

From the Individual to the Group: Using Idiographic Analyses and Two-Stage Random Effects Meta-Analysis to Obtain Population Level Inferences for within-Person Processes

In psychology, the use of portable technology and wearable devices to ease participant burden in data collection is on the rise. This creates increased interest in collecting real-time or near real-time data from individuals within their natural environments. As a result, vast amounts of observational time series data are generated. Often, motivation for collecting this data hinges on understanding within-person processes that underlie psychological phenomena. Motivated by the body of Dr. Peter Molenaar's life work calling for analytical approaches that consider potential heterogeneity and non-ergodicity, the focus of this paper is on using idiographic analyses to generate population inferences for within-person processes. Meta-analysis techniques using one-stage and two-stage random effects meta-analysis as implemented in single-case experimental designs are presented. The case for preferring a two-stage approach for meta-analysis of single-subject observational time series data is made and demonstrated using an empirical example. This provides a novel implementation of the methodology as prior implementations focus on applications to short time series with experimental designs. Inspired by Dr. Molenaar's work, we describe how an approach, two-stage random effects meta-analysis (2SRE-MA), aligns with recent calls to consider idiographic approaches when making population-level inferences regarding within-person processes.

Alternating time spent on social interactions and solitude in healthy older adults

Time spent on being with others (social interactions) and being alone (solitude) in day to day life might reflect older adults' agentic regulatory strategies to balance the needs to belong and to conserve energy. Motivated from a joint lifespan psychological and social relationship theoretical perspective, this study examined how time spent on social interactions and solitude alternatively unfolds within individuals in daily life, relating to individual differences in trait-level well-being and fatigue. Over 21 days, a total of 11,172 valid records of social interactions were collected from 118 older adults (aged 65-94 years) in a smartphone-based event-contingent ambulatory assessment study in Switzerland. On average, a social interaction episode lasted 39 min and a solitude episode lasted 5.03 hr. Multilevel models showed that, at the within-person level, a longer-than-usual social interaction preceded and was followed by a longer-than-usual solitude episode. Moderator analyses showed that older adults with higher trait life satisfaction and lower trait fatigue spent even more time in social interactions after longer solitude episodes, amplifying the solitude-then-interaction association. Our findings suggest that whereas social interaction is a means to improve well-being, solitude is also an integral part in older adults' daily life supporting energy recovery.

Coordinating movements and beliefs: Different facets of doing things together

This study investigates the relations between two forms of joint action (JA)-movement coordination (MC) and goal attainment-and theory of mind (ToM), contrasting the interactionist and traditional cognitivist views. A custom task was carried out to measure the properties of the JAs between children and their parents, while classical tasks were performed to measure first- and second-order ToM. Thereafter, cross-recurrence quantification analysis was applied to quantify participants' movements. The children were from Poland and were aged 42, 66, and 78 months (N = 297, 133 girls, White, from a large city). The results suggested that the characteristics of dyad MC influence goal attainment and are related to children's first-order ToM (R²  = .447) but not to their second-order ToM.

Incorporating ecological momentary assessment into multimethod investigations of cognitive aging: Promise and practical considerations

Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) represents a promising approach to study cognitive aging. In contrast to laboratory-based studies, EMA involves the repeated sampling of experiences in daily life contexts, enabling investigators to gain access to dynamic processes (e.g., situational contexts, intraindividual variability) that are likely to strongly contribute to aging and age-related change across the adult life-span. As such, EMA approaches complement the prevailing research methods in the field of cognitive aging (e.g., laboratory-based paradigms, neuroimaging), while also providing the opportunity to replicate and extend findings from the laboratory in more naturalistic contexts. Following an overview of the methodological and conceptual strengths of EMA approaches in cognitive aging research, we discuss best practices for researchers interested in implementing EMA studies. A key goal is to highlight the tremendous potential for combining EMA methods with other laboratory-based approaches, in order to increase the robustness, replicability, and real-world implications of research findings in the field of cognitive aging. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Cannabis use and posttraumatic stress disorder: prospective evidence from a longitudinal study of veterans

BACKGROUND

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the most highly co-occurring psychiatric disorder among veterans with cannabis use disorder (CUD). Despite some evidence that cannabis use prospectively exacerbates the course of PTSD, which in turn increases the risk for CUD, the causal nature of the relationship between cannabis and psychiatric comorbidity is debated. The longitudinal relationship between PTSD diagnosis and traumatic intrusion symptoms with cannabis use and CUD was examined using cross-lagged panel model (CLPM) analysis.

METHODS

Prospective data from a longitudinal observational study of 361 veterans deployed post-9/11/2001 included PTSD and CUD diagnoses, cannabis use, and PTSD-related traumatic intrusion symptoms from the Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms.

RESULTS

A random intercept CLPM analysis that leveraged three waves (baseline, 6 months and 12 months) of cannabis use and PTSD-related intrusion symptoms to account for between-person differences found that baseline cannabis use was significantly positively associated with 6-month intrusion symptoms; the converse association was significant but reduced in magnitude (baseline use to 6-month intrusions: β = 0.46, 95% CI 0.155-0.765; baseline intrusions to 6-month use: β = 0.22, 95% CI -0.003 to 0.444). Results from the two-wave CLPM reveal a significant effect from baseline PTSD to 12-month CUD (β = 0.15, 95% CI 0.028-0.272) but not from baseline CUD to 12-month PTSD (β = 0.12, 95% CI -0.022 to 0.262).

CONCLUSIONS

Strong prospective associations capturing within-person changes suggest that cannabis use is linked with greater severity of trauma-related intrusion symptoms over time. A strong person-level directional association between PTSD and CUD was evident. Findings have significant clinical implications for the long-term effects of cannabis use among individuals with PTSD.

Dyadic analysis and the reciprocal one-with-many model: Extending the study of interpersonal processes with intensive longitudinal data

Newly available data streams from experience sampling studies and social media are providing new opportunities to study individuals' dyadic relations. The "one-with-many" (OWM) model (Kenny et al., 2006; Kenny & Winquist, 2001) was specifically constructed for and is used to examine features of multiple dyadic relationships that one set of focal persons (e.g., therapists, physicians) has with others (e.g., multiple clients, multiple patients). Originally, the OWM model was constructed for and applied to cross-sectional data. However, the model can be extended to accommodate and may be particularly useful for the analysis of intensive repeated measures data now being obtained through experience sampling and social media. This article (a) provides a practical tutorial on fitting the OWM model, (b) describes how the OWM model is extended for analysis of repeated measures data, and (c) illustrates application of the OWM model using reports about interpersonal behavior and benefits individuals experienced in 64,111 social interactions during 9 weeks of study (N = 150). Our presentation highlights the utility of the OWM model for examining interpersonal processes in everyday life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Not "The More The Merrier": Diminishing Returns to Daily Face-To-Face Social Interaction Frequency for Well-being in Older Age

OBJECTIVES

While being socially active is beneficial for well-being in older age, it is unclear whether effects of social interactions on well-being indicate "the more the merrier" or they have limits as individuals socialize more or less across different days. This study addressed diminishing returns to social interaction frequency for well-being.

METHOD

We examined data from an event-contingent experience sampling study from 116 Swiss older adults (65 to 94 years old) over 21 days. Participants reported face-to-face social interactions once they occurred and daily well-being (i.e., positive and negative affect, loneliness) in the evenings.

RESULTS

On average, participants had 2.09 face-to-face social interactions per day. Linear and quadratic effects from multilevel models conjointly indicated that a higher number of daily social interactions was associated with higher daily positive affect and lower daily negative affect and loneliness, but that well-being reached its peak at 2 to 3 times above participants' typical daily interaction frequency. Once these numbers were surpassed, the benefit of additional social interactions diminished. Additionally, participants who typically had fewer social interactions, were unmarried, lived alone, and had more health conditions showed stronger associations between daily social interaction frequency and well-being.

DISCUSSION

Our findings suggest the benefits of social interactions on well-being exhibit diminishing returns. Social interactions may play a bigger role in older adults with less satiation for desire to belong and a limited future time perspective. We discuss these findings in terms of the belongingness hypothesis and the socioemotional selectivity theory.

Integrating dynamic and developmental time scales: Emotion-specific autonomic coordination predicts baseline functioning over time

Autonomic nervous system activity flexibly shifts and modulates behavior at multiple time scales, with some work suggesting that patterns of short-term reactivity contribute to long-term developmental change. However, previous work has largely considered sympathetic and parasympathetic systems independently, even though both systems contribute dynamically to the regulation of physiological arousal. Using physiological data obtained from 313 children in kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade we examined whether within-person autonomic coordination during an emotion-inducing film task in kindergarten was associated with developmental change in resting autonomic activity. On average, these kindergarteners exhibited reciprocal coordination during the approach-oriented emotion (angry, happy) condition and a lack of coordination during the avoidance-oriented emotion (fear, sad) condition. Alignment with these patterns was associated with more typical autonomic development, specifically an increase in resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and a decrease in resting skin conductance (SCR) from kindergarten to 2nd grade; while lack of coordination during the approach condition was associated with a relatively delayed increase in resting RSA and a steeper decline in SCR, and reciprocal coordination during the avoidance condition was associated with a lack of RSA increase. Findings highlight the need for additional consideration of how moment-to-moment dynamics of autonomic coordination influence longer-term development, and suggest that early patterns of atypical arousal may portend dysregulation of developing physiological systems.

Social Comparison on Social Media Increases Career Frustration: A Focus on the Mitigating Effect of Companionship

Social media has become a platform for the daily exchange of information. Although some studies have explored the role and influence of social media on career development, few have examined how daily social media use impacts individuals’ perceptions and emotions regarding their careers. The present study examined this issue using two surveys. We predicted that social comparison would mediate the link between social media usage and its psychological impact. Moreover, we hypothesized that the impact would be mitigated by social interactions (companionship). Study 1 (a self-reported survey that included 309 Japanese employees) demonstrated that viewing other users’ positive posts about their careers could lead to career frustration through social comparison. Concurrently, this study revealed that daily casual interaction with others reduced career frustration. Study 2 was based on an analysis of 1,254 responses obtained from a 7-day experience sampling method survey. It revealed that viewing other people’s career-related posts was associated with upward, downward, and non-directional social comparison. In turn, upward social comparison evoked career frustration at both between- and within-person levels, while downward comparison decreased career frustration at a between-person level. Similar to Study 1, the results of Study 2 indicated that career frustration was mitigated by casual communication with others. Both studies provide evidence that (1) daily social media use affects one’s perception and feelings about their career through social comparison, and (2) career frustration evoked through virtual interactions with others is mitigated by casual interactions in a face-to-face setting.

Anticipatory Coping Diversity: Implications for Emotional, Physical, and Cognitive Reactivity to Daily Stressors

OBJECTIVES

This study examines the concept of anticipatory coping diversity, reflected in the evenness and richness of anticipatory coping strategies. The overarching goal of the present study is to show how individual differences in anticipatory coping diversity are associated with emotional, physical, and cognitive reactivity to daily stressors, and to examine whether these dynamic characteristics might differ between younger and older adults.

METHOD

107 younger (M age = 19.44, range 18-36) and 116 older (M age = 64.71, range 60-90) participants reported on 1627 total days via an online daily diary study. Participants reported baseline demographic information (Day 1) and anticipatory coping, stressor exposure, negative affect, physical symptoms, and memory failures (Days 2-9). Anticipatory coping diversity was indexed at the person level using Shannon's entropy to capture the evenness and richness of anticipatory coping strategies across stressors.

RESULTS

People with more anticipatory coping diversity were less emotionally reactive, but more physically and cognitively reactive to daily stressors. Older adults exhibited less anticipatory coping diversity than younger adults, but the patterns of anticipatory coping diversity differences in reactivity appeared to be consistent across younger and older adults.

DISCUSSION

Anticipatory coping diversity reflects a useful index within the stress process that is associated with benefits as well as costs. These findings bridge dispositional and contextual approaches to coping and highlight the importance of understanding how deployment of coping strategies are related to well-being across the adult lifespan.

Television Viewing, Physical Activity, and Loneliness in Late Life

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Television viewing is the most common leisure activity in late life and may ease loneliness but encourage sedentary behavior. These associations may be particularly evident among older adults who live alone and who may lack other forms of companionship throughout the day.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

Adults aged 65+ (N = 257) participated, of whom 34% lived alone. Participants completed an initial interview followed by a 5- to 6-day data collection involving multi-methods: (a) Electronically Activated Recorders (EAR) (30 seconds every 7 minutes) provided audio recordings of television viewing, (b) Actical accelerometers objectively measured physical activity, and (c) ecological momentary assessments (EMA) every 3 hours assessed social interactions.

RESULTS

On average, older adults spent approximately 37% of their waking time (6.4 hours a day) watching television. Multilevel models revealed that television viewing occurred when participants were alone or with a spouse and was associated with a greater proportion of time sedentary, lower activity, and higher ratings of loneliness compared to when not watching television. Older adults who lived alone reported greater loneliness during 3-hour intervals when viewing television, but older adults who lived with others spent a greater proportion of time sedentary when viewing television.

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

Findings are discussed with regard to different rationales and ways of watching television - as compensation for social isolation or as a passive leisure activity with a social partner. We discuss ideas for research on additional aspects of television viewing and screen time in late life.

Cognitive bias modification for threat interpretations: using passive Mobile Sensing to detect intervention effects in daily life

BACKGROUND

Social anxiety disorder is associated with distinct mobility patterns (e.g., increased time spent at home compared to non-anxious individuals), but we know little about if these patterns change following interventions. The ubiquity of GPS-enabled smartphones offers new opportunities to assess the benefits of mental health interventions beyond self-reported data.

OBJECTIVES

This pre-registered study (https://osf.io/em4vn/?view_only=b97da9ef22df41189f1302870fdc9dfe) assesses the impact of a brief, online cognitive training intervention for threat interpretations using passively-collected mobile sensing data.

DESIGN

Ninety-eight participants scoring high on a measure of trait social anxiety completed five weeks of mobile phone monitoring, with 49 participants randomly assigned to receive the intervention halfway through the monitoring period.

RESULTS

The brief intervention was not reliably associated with changes to participant mobility patterns.

CONCLUSIONS

Despite the lack of significant findings, this paper offers a framework within which to test future intervention effects using GPS data. We present a template for combining clinical theory and empirical GPS findings to derive testable hypotheses, outline data processing steps, and provide human-readable data processing scripts to guide future research. This manuscript illustrates how data processing steps common in engineering can be harnessed to extend our understanding of the impact of mental health interventions in daily life.

Smartphone-Based Ecological Momentary Assessment of Well-Being: A Systematic Review and Recommendations for Future Studies

Feelings of well-being and happiness fluctuate over time and contexts. Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) studies can capture fluctuations in momentary behavior, and experiences by assessing these multiple times per day. Traditionally, EMA was performed using pen and paper. Recently, due to technological advances EMA studies can be conducted more easily with smartphones, a device ubiquitous in our society. The goal of this review was to evaluate the literature on smartphone-based EMA in well-being research in healthy subjects. The systematic review was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. Searching PubMed and Web of Science, we identified 53 studies using smartphone-based EMA of well-being. Studies were heterogeneous in designs, context, and measures. The average study duration was 12.8 days, with well-being assessed 2-12 times per day. Half of the studies included objective data (e.g. location). Only 47.2% reported compliance, indicating a mean of 71.6%. Well-being fluctuated daily and weekly, with higher well-being in evenings and weekends. These fluctuations disappeared when location and activity were accounted for. On average, being in nature and physical activity relates to higher well-being. Working relates to lower well-being, but workplace and company do influence well-being. The important advantages of using smartphones instead of other devices to collect EMAs are the easier data collection and flexible designs. Smartphone-based EMA reach far larger maximum sample sizes and more easily add objective data to their designs than palm-top/PDA studies. Smartphone-based EMA research is feasible to gain insight in well-being fluctuations and its determinants and offers the opportunity for parallel objective data collection. Most studies currently focus on group comparisons, while studies on individual differences in well-being patterns and fluctuations are lacking. We provide recommendations for future smartphone-based EMA research regarding measures, objective data and analyses.

Implications of Family Cohesion and Conflict for Adolescent Mood and Well-Being: Examining Within- and Between-Family Processes on a Daily Timescale

Family-level conflict and cohesion are well-established predictors of adolescent mental health. However, traditional approaches focusing on between-family differences in cohesion and conflict may overlook daily intrafamily variability that might provide important new information. We used data from a 21-day daily diary protocol in a sample of 151 caregivers (95.3% female) and their adolescent child (61.5% female) in two-caregiver families to test whether daily changes in family functioning are associated with daily changes in adolescent well-being and whether adolescent well-being depends on average levels of family functioning. We examined family cohesion and conflict in relation to adolescent angry, depressed, and anxious mood, as well as happiness, life satisfaction, and meaning and purpose in life in multilevel models. Both cohesion and conflict exhibited meaningful daily variation. Adolescent-reported cohesion and conflict had unique within-family associations with all six adolescent outcomes. Models using parent reports of family functioning yielded fewer associations than models with adolescent reports; however, several findings remained. Cross-level interactions indicated that within-family variations in cohesion were only associated with adolescent depression in families with lower average levels of cohesion across days. In sum, this study provides compelling evidence that families exhibit meaningful variability from day to day and that daily variation has important implications for adolescent well-being.

A Coordinated Analysis of Variance in Affect in Daily Life

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.

Digitalization and the Social Lives of Older Adults: Protocol for a Microlongitudinal Study

BACKGROUND

Digital technologies are increasingly pervading our daily lives. Although older adults started using digital technologies later than other age groups, they are increasingly adopting these technologies, especially with the goal of communicating with others. However, less is known about how online social activities are embedded in older adults' daily lives, how they complement other (offline) social activities, and how they contribute to social connectedness and well-being.

OBJECTIVE

Data generated by this project will allow us to understand how older adults use digital communication in their daily lives to communicate with others, how this relates to well-being and social connectedness, and how communication using digital technologies differs from other types of communication depending on situational and individual characteristics.

METHODS

Microlongitudinal data were collected from 120 older adults from German-speaking regions of Switzerland to examine these questions. Data collection took place from April 2019 to October 2019. Data collection took place over different time scales, including event-based (reporting all social interactions for 21 days), daily (well-being, loneliness, and technology use every evening for 21 days), hourly (cortisol assessments 6 times per day for 3 days), and baseline (relevant interindividual characteristics, including sociodemographics, health, technology use, personality, and cognitive performance) assessments.

RESULTS

Data collection for this study was completed in November 2019. Participants reported an average of 96.35 interactions across the 21 days. Among the total 11,453 interactions, 5494 (47.97%) were face-to-face, and around 16% each were interactions by phone (1858, 16.16%), email (1858, 16.22%), and text message (1853, 16.18%). Otherwise, 246 (2.15%) of the interactions took place on social media, 96 (0.84)% were letters, and 54 (0.47%) of the interactions took place on videochat.

CONCLUSIONS

Participants used a variety of modalities in their daily communication, including digital means such as text messages, email, and video calls. Further analysis will provide more detail as to the role that communication via digital media plays in older adults' daily lives.

INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID)

RR1-10.2196/20306.

Variety Is the Spice of Late Life: Social Integration and Daily Activity

OBJECTIVES

Social integration (involvement with a diverse array of social ties) has been linked to positive outcomes including better physical health. Research has not investigated whether encounters with diverse social ties enhance individuals' daily behaviors. The objectives of this study were to assess whether social ties connect individuals to more diverse daily behaviors, physical activity, and nonsedentary time as well as more positive mood.

METHOD

Older adults (aged 65+, n = 313) provided information about their 10 closest social ties. Then they completed ecological momentary assessment (EMA) surveys every 3 hr for 5-6 days where they reported on social encounters and behaviors. They also wore Actical accelerometers to objectively measure physical activity.

RESULTS

Multilevel models revealed that encounters with a greater variety of social ties was associated with engaging in a greater variety of behaviors, more objectively measured physical activity, and a smaller proportion of time spent sedentary. Encounters with weak ties/peripheral social ties accounted for this increased activity (compared to being alone or with close friends or family). Moreover, involvement with diverse ties or diverse behaviors was associated with better mood.

DISCUSSION

Findings are discussed in terms of social engagement theory, network diversity, and the benefits of weak ties.

Possible Application of Ecological Momentary Assessment to Older Adults' Daily Depressive Mood: Integrative Literature Review

BACKGROUND

Ecological momentary assessment is a method of investigating individuals' real-time experiences, behaviors, and moods in their natural environment over time. Despite its general usability and clinical value for evaluating daily depressive mood, there are several methodological challenges when applying ecological momentary assessment to older adults.

OBJECTIVE

The aims of this integrative literature review were to examine possible uses of the ecological momentary assessment methodology with older adults and to suggest strategies to increase the feasibility of its application in geriatric depression research and practice.

METHODS

We searched 4 electronic databases (MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and EMBASE) and gray literature; we also hand searched the retrieved articles' references. We limited all database searches to articles published in peer-reviewed journals from 2009 to 2019. Search terms were "ecological momentary assessment," "smartphone assessment," "real time assessment," "electronic daily diary," "mHealth momentary assessment," "mobile-based app," and "experience sampling method," combined with the relevant terms of depression. We included any studies that enrolled older adults even as a subgroup and that reported depressive mood at least once a day for more than 2 days.

RESULTS

Of the 38 studies that met the inclusion criteria, only 1 study enrolled adults aged 65 years or older as the entire sample; the remainder of the reviewed studies used mixed samples of both younger and older adults. Most of the analyzed studies (18/38, 47%) were quantitative, exploratory (descriptive, correlational, and predictive), and cohort in design. Ecological momentary assessment was used to describe the fluctuating pattern of participants' depressive moods primarily and to examine the correlation between mood patterns and other health outcomes as a concurrent symptom. We found 3 key methodological issues: (1) heterogeneity in study design and protocol, (2) issues with definitions of dropout and adherence, and (3) variation in how depressive symptoms were measured with ecological momentary assessment. Some studies (8/38, 21%) examined the age difference of participants with respect to dropout or poor compliance rate. Detailed participant burden was reported, such as technical problems, aging-related health problems, or discomfort while using the device.

CONCLUSIONS

Ecological momentary assessment has been used for comprehensive assessment of multiple mental health indicators in relation to depressive mood. Our findings provide methodological considerations for further studies that may be implemented using ecological momentary assessment to assess daily depressive mood in older adults. Conducting more feasibility studies focusing on older adults with standardized data collection protocols and mixed-methods research is required to reflect users' experiences. Further telepsychiatric evaluation and diagnosis based on ecological momentary assessment data should involve standardized and sophisticated strategies to maximize the potential of ecological momentary assessment for older adults with depression in the community setting.

Cortisol dynamics in depression: Application of a continuous-time process model

BACKGROUND

The temporal dynamics of cortisol may be altered in depression. Optimally studying these dynamics in daily life requires specific analytical methods. We used a continuous-time multilevel process model to study set point (rhythm-corrected mean), variability around this set point, and regulation strength (speed with which cortisol levels regulate back to the set point after any perturbation). We examined the generalizability of the parameters across two data sets with different sampling and assay methods, and the hypothesis that regulation strength, but not set point or variability thereof, would be altered in depressed, compared to non-depressed individuals.

METHODS

The first data set is a general population sample of female twins (n = 523), of which 21 were depressed, with saliva samples collected 10 times a day for 5 days. The second data set consists of pair-matched clinically depressed and non-depressed individuals (n = 30), who collected saliva samples 3 times a day for 30 days. Set point, regulation strength and variability were examined using a Bayesian multilevel Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) process model. They were first compared between samples, and thereafter assessed within samples in relation to depression.

RESULTS

Set point and variability of salivary cortisol were twice as high in the female twin sample, compared to the pair-matched sample. The ratio between set point and variability, as well as regulation strength, which are relative measures and therefore less affected by the specific assay method, were similar across samples. The average regulation strength was high; after an increase in cortisol, cortisol levels would decrease by 63 % after 10 min, and by 95 % after 30 min, but depressed individuals of the pair-matched sample displayed an even faster regulation strength.

CONCLUSIONS

The OU process model recovered similar cortisol dynamics for the relative parameters of the two data sets. The results suggest that regulation strength is increased in depressed individuals. We recommend the presented methodology for future studies and call for replications with more diverse depressed populations.

Age differences in emotion regulation strategy use, variability, and flexibility: An experience sampling approach

Life span developmental theories suggest that as individuals age, they accumulate knowledge about how to deploy emotion regulation (ER) strategies effectively and learn how to match their ER strategy use with changes in situational demands. Using an event-contingent experience sampling design wherein 150 adults Age 18 to 89 years reported on 64,213 social interactions (M = 427.41, SD = 145.66) during 9 weeks of daily life, this study examines (a) age-related differences in individuals' usual ER strategy use (reappraisal, suppression) during everyday social interactions, (b) age-related differences in how much individuals' use of these two strategies varies across social situations-ER variability, and (c) age-related differences in the extent to which ER strategy use covaries with relational (close vs. nonclose others) and emotional (happy, sad) contextual features of those social situations-ER flexibility. In line with a small body of prior work, usual ER strategy use did not differ across adulthood and ER variability was lower at older ages. Results from multilevel models of intraindividual covariation suggested that individuals flexibly matched their ER strategy implementation to changes in emotional context-especially when interacting with close others. The results also provided evidence that the intraindividual covariation between relational context and use of suppression was weaker at older ages. Beyond these specific findings, this study demonstrated the utility of experience sampling designs, event-contingent reports, and the measurement/modeling of intraindividual variation and covariation for study of emotional development across the life span. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The Role of General and Daily Control Beliefs for Affective Stressor-Reactivity Across Adulthood and Old Age

BACKGROUND

General and situational control beliefs have been examined separately as buffers of the effects of daily stressors on affective well-being. However, general (trait) control beliefs reflect perceived ability to adapt, change, and influence overall life circumstances, whereas situational (daily) control beliefs reflect perceived ability to manage current circumstances and achieve desired outcomes.

METHOD

Using 9 weeks of daily reports from 150 adults aged 18-89 years, we examined the extent that general and daily control beliefs buffer the between- and within-person associations involving stressors and negative and positive affect (i.e., daily stress processes) and whether/how the extent of buffering differs with age.

RESULTS

Aligning with prior findings, both greater average stressor exposure and experiencing a daily stressor compromised daily affective well-being and both higher general and daily control beliefs facilitated daily affective well-being. Specific to the motivating hypotheses, both general and daily control beliefs buffered daily stressor-reactivity. Age was associated with individuals' daily stressor-buffering, such that stressor-reactivity was more effectively damped at older ages. Associations between general control beliefs and daily stress processes were age invariant.

DISCUSSION

Mixed evidence of age differences across general and daily control beliefs highlights how within-person processes may differentially contribute to well-being as individuals accommodate age-related strengths and vulnerabilities.

Measurement of Dynamical Resilience Indicators Improves the Prediction of Recovery Following Hospitalization in Older Adults

OBJECTIVES

Acute illnesses and subsequent hospital admissions present large health stressors to older adults, after which their recovery is variable. The concept of physical resilience offers opportunities to develop dynamical tools to predict an individual's recovery potential. This study aimed to investigate if dynamical resilience indicators based on repeated physical and mental measurements in acutely hospitalized geriatric patients have added value over single baseline measurements in predicting favorable recovery.

DESIGN

Intensive longitudinal study.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

121 patients (aged 84.3 ± 6.2 years, 60% female) admitted to the geriatric ward for acute illness.

MEASUREMENTS

In addition to preadmission characteristics (frailty, multimorbidity), in-hospital heart rate and physical activity were continuously monitored with a wearable sensor. Momentary well-being (life satisfaction, anxiety, discomfort) was measured by experience sampling 4 times per day. The added value of dynamical indicators of resilience was investigated for predicting recovery at hospital discharge and 3 months later.

RESULTS

31% of participants satisfied the criteria of good recovery at hospital discharge and 50% after 3 months. A combination of a frailty index, multimorbidity, Clinical Frailty Scale, and or gait speed predicted good recovery reasonably well on the short term [area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) = 0.79], but only moderately after 3 months (AUC = 0.70). On addition of dynamical resilience indicators, the AUC for predicting good 3-month recovery increased to 0.79 (P = .03). Variability in life satisfaction and anxiety during the hospital stay were independent predictors of good 3-month recovery [odds ratio (OR) = 0.24, P = .01, and OR = 0.54, P = .04, respectively].

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

These results highlight that measurements capturing the dynamic functioning of multiple physiological systems have added value in assessing physical resilience in clinical practice, especially those monitoring mental responses. Improved monitoring and prediction of physical resilience could help target intensive treatment options and subsequent geriatric rehabilitation to patients who will most likely benefit from them.

Interpersonal Tensions and Pain Among Older Adults: The Mediating Role of Negative Mood

OBJECTIVES

To examine whether (a) negative social encounters and physical pain are linked throughout the day, (b) negative mood mediates these associations, and (c) these associations vary by closeness with social partners.

METHOD

Adults aged 65+ (n = 313) completed ecological momentary assessments and reported their negative social encounters, physical pain, and mood every 3 hr throughout the day for 5-6 days.

RESULTS

Multilevel models revealed that negative social encounters were associated with greater pain at each 3-hr interval and that this association was mediated by negative mood during the same interval. Negative encounters with less close partners were associated with pain, but negative encounters with close partners were not.

DISCUSSION

Regulating older adults' negative emotions may be crucial to improving their daily pain. Further, interventions focusing on negative encounters with less close partners in daily life may help mitigate older adults' experiences of pain throughout the day.

Daily Marital Tension and Symptom Severity in Older Adults With Diabetes or Osteoarthritis

Background

Greater marital quality is associated with better psychological and physical health. The quality of daily marital interactions is likely to be especially important for individuals with chronic illness, but this question has received little attention.

Purpose

Using data from two diary studies, the current study examined whether individuals with chronic illness would experience more severe symptoms on days with more marital tension due in part to greater negative affect on those days.

Methods

The samples included individuals with knee osteoarthritis (OA, N = 145) or type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM, N = 129) and their spouses. Participants reported on daily marital interaction quality, affect, and symptom severity (patients only) for 22 days (knee OA) or 24 days (T2DM). Separate multilevel models were run for patients and spouses, controlling for the partner's marital tension and negative affect as well as both partners' daily marital enjoyment and positive affect. We examined same-day and across-day associations.

Results

For individuals with T2DM or knee OA, more severe symptoms on days with more marital tension were due in part to their greater negative affect on those days. Individuals with knee OA who experienced more pain had more negative affect and marital tension the next day.

Conclusions

Negative marital interactions may exacerbate physical symptoms. Effects of daily marital tension likely accumulate over time and have long-term implications for health.

It's Time to Think about Time in Health Psychology

This position paper addresses the need for stronger theorizing on temporal matters in health psychology. Too few theories in health psychology address temporal matters in the specified psychological phenomena, their relationships, and the explanation for these relationships. This might lead to underestimating existing relationships between constructs over time or missing out on opportunities for advancing our knowledge with regard to dynamic developments of the phenomena of interest. Examples of existing theories and approaches addressing temporal matters in health psychology are provided. Further, drawing from other disciplines, examples of methodological and conceptual approaches are outlined that offer directions on how to optimize our theories with regard to temporal matters. This might start with including time-related theoretical considerations to the definition of psychological concepts already in cross-sectional research and might reach as far as developing dynamic theories for capturing and changing phenomena of interest in real life. Challenges and opportunities of theorizing about temporal matters in health psychology are addressed.

Cross-day influences between couple closeness and coparenting support among new parents

The couple and coparenting relationships are demonstrated to be prospectively and bidirectionally associated over months to years during the early parenting years. However, little is known about these associations at the daily level within the first year of parenthood, when coparenting first emerges. The goal of the current study was to examine the association between couples' daily feelings of relationship closeness and coparenting support in first-time parents and determine directionality of these effects using a dyadic daily diary design. At 10 months postpartum, heterosexual couples (N = 141 dyads) completed daily diaries for 8 consecutive days. An autoregressive cross-lagged model was incorporated within an Actor Partner Interdependence Modeling framework to examine at the daily level: (a) within-person cross-day associations between relationship closeness and coparenting support, (b) cross-partner cross-day associations within relationship closeness and coparenting support, (c) cross-partner cross-day associations between relationship closeness and coparenting support, and (d) gender differences in these associations. Results revealed a prospective, within person bidirectional link between daily relationship closeness and perceived coparenting support for both mothers and fathers. Additionally, an indirect effect from mothers' experiences of coparenting support to fathers' relationship closeness through fathers' experiences of coparenting support was found at the daily level. Findings highlight the interdependent nature of the couple and coparenting relationship at the daily level during the first year of parenthood and suggest that mothers' feeling supported by their coparenting partners may facilitate a "virtuous cycle" between coparenting support and relationship closeness early in the coparenting relationship. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Measuring Daily Activity of Emerging Adults: Text Messaging for Assessing Risk Behavior

We evaluated the validity of the use of an SMS text messaging survey for measuring daily life activity in a sample of emerging adults. Short Message Service (SMS) text messaging is a prevalent form of everyday communication in the lives of emerging adults, yet there is limited research on the use of automated text messaging as a data collection method in clinical research. Study participants were 274 ethnically diverse emerging adults (54.4% female, baseline age = 17-21 years), and constructs included alcohol use, substance use, school activity, peer interaction, mood, and interaction with parents. Participants responded to "bursts" that included multiple surveys during the course of 2 weeks, 6 months apart (a total of 13 texting surveys). Most of the questions were strongly associated across bursts. Findings revealed response stability for participating subjects across the 6 months and across the texting and self-report survey methodologies. Paired sample t-tests indicated that participants reported differently across data methodologies, which suggests that some data collection methodologies are best suited for certain types of constructs, such as alcohol consumption. Study results encapsulate the daily life of emerging adults and highlight the importance of evaluating the validity of SMS text messaging as a potential data collection device in future research.

The Integration of EMA and Single-Occasion Multimethod Assessment Data for a Complex Psychiatric Patient

The utilization of multimethod assessment approaches can provide comprehensive information regarding daily interpersonal and personality functioning, increasing opportunities to guide treatment planning in a more personalized, evidence-based manner. The routine implementation of multimethod assessment within clinical settings, however, remains rare, and there are few studies that have reviewed the clinical utility of multimethod assessment. Our goal in this study was to analyze multimethod data collected from a single research subject enrolled in residential treatment in order to illustrate the process of integrating data across both single-occasion (e.g., self-report, performance-based, and behavioral tests) and multitimepoint (ecological momentary assessment of interpersonal experiences) dimensions. Results revealed both areas of convergence and divergence across measures, enabling the development of a complex clinical formulation that sharpened diagnostic considerations and contributed valuable insights to treatment planning. Our findings provide support for the value of incorporating multimethod assessment into routine clinical practice.

Socioemotional Dynamics of Emotion Regulation and Depressive Symptoms: A Person-Specific Network Approach

Socioemotional processes engaged in daily life may afford and/or constrain individuals' emotion regulation in ways that affect psychological health. Recent findings from experience sampling studies suggest that persistence of negative emotions (emotion inertia), the strength of relations among an individual's negative emotions (density of the emotion network), and cycles of negative/aggressive interpersonal transactions are related to psychological health. Using multiple bursts of intensive experience sampling data obtained from 150 persons over one year, person-specific analysis, and impulse response analysis, this study quantifies the complex and interconnected socioemotional processes that surround individuals' daily social interactions and on-going regulation of negative emotion in terms of recovery time. We also examine how this measure of regulatory inefficiency is related to interindividual differences and intraindividual change in level of depressive symptoms. Individuals with longer recovery times had higher overall level of depressive symptoms. As well, during periods where recovery time of sadness was longer than usual, individuals' depressive symptoms were also higher than usual, particularly among individuals who experienced higher overall level of stressful life events. The findings and analysis highlight the utility of a person-specific network approach to study emotion regulation, how regulatory processes change over time, and potentially how planned changes in the configuration of individuals' systems may contribute to psychological health.

Age differences in adults' daily social interactions: An ecological momentary assessment study

Prevailing research has suggested that social relationships get better with age, but this evidence has been largely based on studies with lengthy reporting intervals. Using an ecological momentary assessment approach, the present study examined age differences in several characteristics of social interactions as reported in near-real time: the frequency, quality, and partner type. Participants (N = 173) ages 20-79 years reported their social interactions at 5 random times throughout the day for 1 week. Results revealed that age was associated with higher frequency of interacting with family and lower frequency of interacting with peripheral partners. These age effects, however, became nonsignificant after accounting for contextual factors such as race, gender, education, employment status, family structure, and living arrangement. In contrast, a curvilinear relationship best characterized age differences in both positive and negative ratings of daily social interaction quality, with middle-aged adults reporting the lowest positive ratings and older adults reporting the lowest negative ratings among all ages. Contextual factors did not account for these patterns of age differences in interaction quality. Furthermore, the intraindividual variability of interaction frequency with peripheral partners, partner diversity, and interaction quality (positivity and negativity) was lower among older adults than among younger adults. Findings from the present study portray a nuanced picture of social interactions in daily life and advance the understanding of social interactions across the life span. (PsycINFO Database Record

Modeling Intraindividual Dynamics Using Stochastic Differential Equations: Age Differences in Affect Regulation

Objectives

Life-span theories of aging suggest improvements and decrements in individuals' ability to regulate affect. Dynamic process models, with intensive longitudinal data, provide new opportunities to articulate specific theories about individual differences in intraindividual dynamics. This paper illustrates a method for operationalizing affect dynamics using a multilevel stochastic differential equation (SDE) model, and examines how those dynamics differ with age and trait-level tendencies to deploy emotion regulation strategies (reappraisal and suppression).

Method

Univariate multilevel SDE models, estimated in a Bayesian framework, were fit to 21 days of ecological momentary assessments of affect valence and arousal (average 6.93/day, SD = 1.89) obtained from 150 adults (age 18-89 years)-specifically capturing temporal dynamics of individuals' core affect in terms of attractor point, reactivity to biopsychosocial (BPS) inputs, and attractor strength.

Results

Older age was associated with higher arousal attractor point and less BPS-related reactivity. Greater use of reappraisal was associated with lower valence attractor point. Intraindividual variability in regulation strategy use was associated with greater BPS-related reactivity and attractor strength, but in different ways for valence and arousal.

Discussion

The results highlight the utility of SDE models for studying affect dynamics and informing theoretical predictions about how intraindividual dynamics change over the life course.

A theoretical and empirical modeling of anxiety integrated with RDoC and temporal dynamics

The newly launched Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) emphasize specific mechanisms over diagnostic categories of psychopathology. In our view, RDoC provides a useful heuristic for mental health disorders, but does not capture the complexity of psychological data when proposed mechanisms are viewed as static entities. However, temporal and complex system dynamics may advance RDoC's utility. By investigating temporal patterns within trajectories and the interaction of complex networks, we propose that dynamic modeling provides comprehensive methods with which to investigate the etiopathology and maintenance of mental health disorders. We examine applications of dynamical systems to periphery physiology, an RDoC construct that has been widely used in psychological science. A review of the literature suggests methodological problems with aggregate and reductive models. We present a dynamical systems modeling of anxiety which suggests avenues for future biomarker research. This model appears congruent with RDoC and recent learning theory.

The Questionable Ecological Validity of Ecological Momentary Assessment: Considerations for Design and Analysis

Experience sampling (ESM), diary, ecological momentary assessment (EMA), ambulatory monitoring, and related methods are part of a research tradition aimed at capturing the ongoing stream of individuals' behavior in real-world situations. By design, these approaches prioritize ecological validity. In this paper, we examine how the purported ecological validity these study designs provide may be compromised during data analysis. After briefly outlining the benefits of EMA-type designs, we highlight some of the design issues that threaten ecological validity, illustrate how the typical multilevel analysis of EMA-type data can compromise generalizability to "real-life", and consider how unobtrusive monitoring and person-specific analysis may provide for more precise descriptions of individuals' actual human ecology.

Behavioral Landscapes and Earth Mover's Distance: A New Approach for Studying Individual Differences in Density Distributions

Contemporary views of personality highlight intraindividual variability. We forward a general method for quantifying individual differences in behavioral tendencies based on Earth Mover's Distance. Using data from 150 individuals who reported on their and others' interpersonal behavior in 64,112 social interactions, we illustrate how this new approach can advance notions of personality as density distributions. Results provide independent confirmation and establish validity of existing representations of individual differences in interpersonal behavior, and identify new dimensions and profiles of personality and well-being. Benefits of the EMD method include freedom from assumptions about the shape and form of density distributions, generality of application to n-dimensional behavior captured in experience sampling studies, and natural integration of personality structure and dynamics.

Capturing Context-Related Change in Emotional Dynamics via Fixed Moderated Time Series Analysis

Much of recent affect research relies on intensive longitudinal studies to assess daily emotional experiences. The resulting data are analyzed with dynamic models to capture regulatory processes involved in emotional functioning. Daily contexts, however, are commonly ignored. This may not only result in biased parameter estimates and wrong conclusions, but also ignores the opportunity to investigate contextual effects on emotional dynamics. With fixed moderated time series analysis, we present an approach that resolves this problem by estimating context-dependent change in dynamic parameters in single-subject time series models. The approach examines parameter changes of known shape and thus addresses the problem of observed intra-individual heterogeneity (e.g., changes in emotional dynamics due to observed changes in daily stress). In comparison to existing approaches to unobserved heterogeneity, model estimation is facilitated and different forms of change can readily be accommodated. We demonstrate the approach's viability given relatively short time series by means of a simulation study. In addition, we present an empirical application, targeting the joint dynamics of affect and stress and how these co-vary with daily events. We discuss potentials and limitations of the approach and close with an outlook on the broader implications for understanding emotional adaption and development.

Stressor diversity: Introduction and empirical integration into the daily stress model

The present study examined whether and how stressor diversity, the extent to which stressor events are spread across multiple types of stressors, contributes to daily affective well-being through the adult life span. Stressor diversity was examined as a unique predictor of daily affect and as a moderator of stressor exposure and stressor reactivity effects. Analyses span 2 independent studies of daily stress: the National Study of Daily Experiences with N = 2,022 adults, aged 33 to 85 years, assessed over T = 8 days, and the Intraindividual Study of Affect, Health, and Interpersonal Behavior with N = 150 adults, aged 18 to 89 years, assessed over T = 63 days. Across both studies, older age was associated with less stressor diversity. Additionally, multivariate multilevel models indicated higher stressor diversity was linked with better affective well-being. Age, however, was not a consistent moderator of such associations. The combination of low stressor diversity and high stressor exposure is discussed as an operationalization of chronic stressors, and this combination was associated with particularly high negative affect and low positive affect. We believe further work will benefit from including both the frequency and diversity of stressor experiences in analyses in order to better characterize individuals' stressor experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record

How are you feeling?: A personalized methodology for predicting mental states from temporally observable physical and behavioral information

It is believed that anomalous mental states such as stress and anxiety not only cause suffering for the individuals, but also lead to tragedies in some extreme cases. The ability to predict the mental state of an individual at both current and future time periods could prove critical to healthcare practitioners. Currently, the practical way to predict an individual's mental state is through mental examinations that involve psychological experts performing the evaluations. However, such methods can be time and resource consuming, mitigating their broad applicability to a wide population. Furthermore, some individuals may also be unaware of their mental states or may feel uncomfortable to express themselves during the evaluations. Hence, their anomalous mental states could remain undetected for a prolonged period of time. The objective of this work is to demonstrate the ability of using advanced machine learning based approaches to generate mathematical models that predict current and future mental states of an individual. The problem of mental state prediction is transformed into the time series forecasting problem, where an individual is represented as a multivariate time series stream of monitored physical and behavioral attributes. A personalized mathematical model is then automatically generated to capture the dependencies among these attributes, which is used for prediction of mental states for each individual. In particular, we first illustrate the drawbacks of traditional multivariate time series forecasting methodologies such as vector autoregression. Then, we show that such issues could be mitigated by using machine learning regression techniques which are modified for capturing temporal dependencies in time series data. A case study using the data from 150 human participants illustrates that the proposed machine learning based forecasting methods are more suitable for high-dimensional psychological data than the traditional vector autoregressive model in terms of both magnitude of error and directional accuracy. These results not only present a successful usage of machine learning techniques in psychological studies, but also serve as a building block for multiple medical applications that could rely on an automated system to gauge individuals' mental states.

Academic time during college: Associations with mood, tiredness, and binge drinking across days and semesters

The current study examined the amount of time American college students spent on academics and explored whether functioning indicators (i.e., positive affect, negative affect, tiredness, and binge drinking) rose and fell with academic time across days and semesters. College students (N = 735) were followed longitudinally and completed 14 daily diaries within each of 7 semesters (N = 56,699 days). The results revealed that academic time decreased slightly during the middle semesters and then increased in later semesters. Furthermore, on days when students spent more time on academics, they reported less positive affect, more tiredness, and less binge drinking; however, the strength and direction of associations depended on the analysis level and whether it was a weekend. Positive affect, for instance, was inversely associated with academics across days, but the reverse was true across semesters. These results emphasize the importance of considering the temporal context in research on adolescent and young adult time use.

The within-person association between alcohol use and sleep duration and quality in situ: An experience sampling study

OBJECTIVE

Despite evidence for detrimental effects of alcohol on sleep quality in laboratory studies, alcohol is commonly used as a self-prescribed sleep aid. This study examined the within-person associations of alcohol use with sleep duration and quality in everyday life to gain insight into the ecological validity of laboratory findings on the association between sleep and alcohol.

METHOD

A sample of 150 adults (age 19-89years) were followed for 60+days as part of an intensive experience sampling study wherein participants provided daily reports of their alcohol use, sleep duration, and sleep quality. Within-person and between-person associations of daily sleep duration and quality with alcohol use were examined using multilevel models.

RESULTS

A significant, negative within-person association was observed between sleep quality and alcohol use. Sleep quality was lower on nights following alcohol use. Sleep duration did not vary as a function of within-person variation in alcohol use.

CONCLUSIONS

In line with laboratory assessments, alcohol use was associated with low sleep quality but was not associated with sleep duration, suggesting that laboratory findings generalize to everyday life. This examination of individuals' daily lives suggests that alcohol does not systematically improve sleep quality or duration in real life.

Daily physical activity and life satisfaction across adulthood

Physical activity is considered a valuable tool for enhancing life satisfaction. However, the processes linking these constructs likely differ across the adult life span. In older adults the association between physical activity and life satisfaction appears to involve usual levels of physical activity (i.e., a between-person association driven by differences between more and less active people). In younger adults the association has consistently been based on day-to-day physical activity (i.e., a within-person association driven by differences between more and less active days). To resolve this inconsistency, a daily diary study was conducted with a life span sample of community-dwelling adults (age 18-89 years; N = 150) over three 21-day measurement bursts. Usual physical activity was positively associated with life satisfaction in middle and older adulthood; however, this association was not present in young adulthood. When present, this between-person association was mediated by physical and mental health. A within-person association between physical activity and life satisfaction was also present (and did not differ across age). Generally, on days when people were more physically active then was typical for them, they experienced greater life satisfaction. Age differences in life satisfaction followed a cubic trajectory: lower during emerging adulthood, higher during midlife, and lower during older adulthood. This study adds to accumulating evidence that daily fluctuations in physical activity have important implications for well-being regardless of age, and clarifies developmental differences in life satisfaction dynamics that can inform strategies for enhancing life satisfaction.