Does repeatedly reporting positive or negative emotions in daily life have an impact on the level of emotional experiences and depressive symptoms over time?

Hendrik-Jan De Vuyst,Peter Kuppens,Egon Dejonckheere,Katleen Van Der Gucht,Fuschia M Sirois

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0219121

Abstract

The extent to which people are aware of their emotional experiences, label them and communicate them to the outside world are considered to impact emotional experience itself and potentially people’s depressive symptom levels. All of these aspects are important elements of one of the most common methods to study and measure emotions in the context of daily life, the so-called experience sampling method (ESM). A straightforward question that arises when using this method is whether participating in ESM may bring about changes in the momentary emotional self-reports of the people engaging in it, thereby effectively influencing that what it intends to measure; emotional experience over time, and whether this would relate to average levels of depressive symptoms. To examine these questions, we conducted a 7-day ESM study in which 90 participants were randomly assigned to repeatedly report either positive emotions only, negative emotions only or non-emotional internal states only, course using smartphones. Participants also completed pre-, post- and follow-up measurements of levels of depressive symptoms. Results showed no significant impact on self-reported momentary emotions, respective to their condition, over time nor on average levels of depressive symptoms across groups. These findings suggest that the repeated assessment of emotions in daily life, over the course of seven days, does not impact their emotional experience over time nor levels of depressive symptoms.

Highlights

The emotions people experience play a crucial role in determining their well-being and risk for psychopathology [1, 2]
High compliance rates, combined with the fact that all participants provided data at all three timepoints, led us to include the total sample for analysis (N = 90)
As a typical experience sampling method (ESM) procedure involves the repeated awareness, labeling and communication of one’s feelings, we hypothesized that this protocol could (1) cause alterations in participants’ self-reported momentary emotions over time, and (2) indirectly influence people’s depressive symptom levels

Summary

Introduction

The emotions people experience play a crucial role in determining their well-being and risk for psychopathology [1, 2]. Which emotions, positive or negative, people experience, and how we relate to these emotional experiences is considered to play an important role for psychological well-being [3]. How we relate to these emotional experiences greatly depends on the extent to which we are aware of them, label them and communicate them to the outside world. Emotional reactivity using experience sampling methodology decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

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Conclusion