Experience Sampling Research Articles

An investigation of earworms and obsessive–compulsive traits using experience sampling and retrospective methods

Having a song ‘stuck’ in the head – an earworm – is a curious cognitive phenomenon frequently experienced among the general population. The intrusive and involuntary nature of earworms has led to recent survey studies investigating their potential link with obsessive–compulsive (OC) traits. However, those higher in OC traits may tend to self-report more earworms and evaluate their episodes less positively, simply because they are more likely to notice and be disturbed by the experience. This study employed both experience sampling methodology (ESM) and a retrospective survey to investigate earworms in relation to OC traits. Participants ( n = 131) undertook online surveys assessing past experiences of earworms, OC traits, and musical experience, followed by 3 days of experience sampling probes. Results indicated that OC traits moderated the relationship between the two measures of earworm frequency, such that consistency between the two measures became weaker at higher levels of OC traits. Ratings of earworm unpleasantness were highly correlated between retrospective and ESM measures, yet OC traits did not moderate this relationship. These findings indicate that individual differences should be considered in choosing a methodology to measure earworm experiences and that ESM may provide a more sensitive measure of earworm frequency.

HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO? UNDERSTANDING LEISURE-WORK SYNERGIZING AND ITS IMPACT ON EMPLOYEE THRIVING

As the world of work continues to evolve, employees are increasingly seeking to do more than manage the bifurcated domains of work and home. Instead, amid greater demands at work alongside greater valuation of leisure, employees are striving to thrive at work without sacrificing their free time. To explore this tension, we adopt an agentic, blended, and future-oriented perspective of the work–nonwork interface and examine leisure-work synergizing as a unique practice for employees to find synergies between leisure and work. Drawing on Spreitzer et al.’s (2005) model of thriving, we theorize that strategically integrating work into leisure activities in an attempt to build work-relevant competencies can inspire (via self-assurance) and hinder (via fatigue) employee thriving at work. To test these predictions, we first conducted a series of validation studies to demonstrate the conceptual relationship among leisure-work synergizing and other work and non-work constructs. Then, using an experience sampling design, we generally found support for the bolstering effects of leisure-work synergizing on thriving through self-assurance. Moreover, segmentation preference—a theoretical moderator related to this unique boundary blurring practice—significantly influenced the proposed relationship between leisure-work synergizing and fatigue. Taken together, our research expands our understanding of the work–non-work interface and the utility of leisure activities for working adults, integrates work–non-work research with positive psychology to reveal non-work agents of thriving, and highlights a novel blended practice to help scholars and managers better understand how employees can “have their cake and eat it too.”

Changing or stable? The effects of adolescents' social media use on psychosocial functioning.

To better understand the effects of social media use on adolescents' psychosocial functioning, this study examined the temporal stability of social media effects across two separate 3-week experience sampling methodology (ESM) studies conducted 6 months apart in 2019 and 2020. Participants were 297 adolescents (Mage = 14.1 years, SD = 0.7, 58.9% girls; 41.1% boys; 0.1% other; 97% Dutch) who completed 126 momentary questionnaires on social media use, affective well-being, self-esteem, and friendship closeness in each of the two ESM studies. The effects of social media on psychosocial functioning had low rank-order stability (r = .05-.25). Findings indicated that the effects of social media use varied not only between individuals but also changed substantially within individuals over time.

Response Rates, Reliability, and Convergent Validity in Experience Sampling Data.

This study examined associations of compliance rate with the reliability and convergent validity of intoxication and negative affect assessments in experience sampling method (ESM) data in three samples (Veterans, Sexual Minority Men, and College Students). Convergent validity was operationalized as within-person associations between daily aggregates of random in situ assessments and retrospective daily assessments or transdermal alcohol assessments. Measures with lower ICC require more assessments for a reliable aggregate (e.g., daily mean). In this regard, the number of completed assessments and intraclass correlation (ICC), rather than compliance with the protocol per se, determines reliability. Although convergent validity was correlated with compliance rate, the relatively weak associations reflect that there are individuals with excellent compliance yet poor convergent validity as well as individuals with poor compliance and excellent convergent validity. The pattern of results does not show a clear threshold for compliance (e.g., 80%) that differentiates good versus poor validity.

Students' situational engagement profiles in formal and informal science learning environments

AbstractStudent engagement is widely considered to be a multidimensional construct consisting of behavioral, cognitive, and affective components. Recent research has examined student engagement in science learning contexts using holistic approaches that account for multidimensionality through the identification of engagement profiles. However, it is not yet clear whether identified science engagement profiles are consistent across different samples, different learning environments, or different modes of measurement. Using data from three extant datasets involving middle‐ and high‐school aged youth, we explored the consistency of students' situational engagement profiles across science learning environments (formal and informal) and modes of measurement (experience sampling and end‐of‐class reports). Results from latent profile analyses of students' behavioral, cognitive, and affective engagement identified four common profiles across the three datasets, though each dataset had its own unique profile solution (ranging from five to seven profiles). Consistent profiles across the three datasets included universally low, moderate, recreational, and full engagement. Three additional engagement profiles were identified (rational, purposeful, and busy engagement), though they emerged inconsistently across the samples. Findings speak to the applicability of conceptual frameworks of engagement to science learning contexts. Results are discussed considering environmental (formal vs. informal learning environments) and methodological considerations (experience sampling vs. end of class report).

Exploring digital use, happiness, and loneliness in Japan with the experience sampling method

Smartphones have become an integral part of modern life, raising concerns about their impact on mental health, especially among young people. However, previous studies yielded inconsistent results, possibly due to neglecting the possibility of interactions between offline and online communications. To explore potential interactions among different communication modes (online vs. offline) and communication types (private vs. public), we adopted the experience sampling method to track 418 Japanese individuals over 21 days and analyzed the data using multilevel models and psychometric network models. The findings revealed that digital use has only small direct effects on happiness and loneliness, especially through public (one-to-many) online communication. The increased digital use reduced offline communication time, indirectly influencing loneliness to a large degree. Overall, this study highlights the indirect effects of decreased face-to-face communication and the significant role of one-to-many online communication, which may explain a part of the diverse findings on this issue.

An Intelligent Maneuver Decision-Making Approach for Air Combat Based on Deep Reinforcement Learning and Transformer Networks

The traditional maneuver decision-making approaches are highly dependent on accurate and complete situation information, and their decision-making quality becomes poor when opponent information is occasionally missing in complex electromagnetic environments. In order to solve this problem, an autonomous maneuver decision-making approach is developed based on deep reinforcement learning (DRL) architecture. Meanwhile, a Transformer network is integrated into the actor and critic networks, which can find the potential dependency relationships among the time series trajectory data. By using these relationships, the information loss is partially compensated, which leads to maneuvering decisions being more accurate. The issues of limited experience samples, low sampling efficiency, and poor stability in the agent training state appear when the Transformer network is introduced into DRL. To address these issues, the measures of designing an effective decision-making reward, a prioritized sampling method, and a dynamic learning rate adjustment mechanism are proposed. Numerous simulation results show that the proposed approach outperforms the traditional DRL algorithms, with a higher win rate in the case of opponent information loss.

Mindfulness buffers the negative effects of social media overuse on work effort through state self-control during crisis: a daily diary study

ABSTRACT To examine the impact of social media overuse on work effort amidst crisis, we apply Conservation of Resources theory to explain how social media acts as an internal stressor that depletes daily self-regulatory resources, resulting in lower daily work effort. Further, we explore whether daily mindfulness acts as a personal resource that individuals can draw from to buffer the negative effects of social media on organisational outcomes. To examine our theoretical model, we use a type of experience sampling methodology (ESM). We followed 227 participants partaking in a 30-day mindfulness challenge during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (May/June 2020) through a daily diary study resulting in 3,851 data points at the within-person level. We examined the association between daily social media overuse and employee work effort through the mediating mechanism of daily state self-control capacity and daily mindfulness as a potential moderator of this relationship. Results suggest that daily social media overuse was related to decreased daily work effort through reduced state self-control; however, participants experienced less decline in work effort following social media overuse on days that they were more mindful, suggesting mindfulness acts as a personal resource that buffers the strain on daily state self-control capacity.

The self-distancing perspective of daily customer mistreatment and employee service behaviors

Recent research has explored employees' functional and dysfunctional reactions to customer mistreatment, acknowledging the diverse impacts it can have. Drawing on self-distancing theory, this study offers a novel investigation into hospitality employees’ varied reactions to daily customer mistreatment and identifies the boundary conditions that influence these responses. Using an experience sampling method research design, we conducted a ten-day daily diary survey of 82 hotel employees. Our results reveal that when hospitality employees adopt a self-distanced perspective following daily customer mistreatment, they are more likely to engage in problem-solving pondering during the evening, which leads to enhanced next-day proactive customer service performance. In contrast, when they adopt a self-immersed perspective, they tend to engage in affective rumination during the evening, which increases next-day service sabotage. Additionally, daily coworker reframing strengthens the relationship between daily customer mistreatment and problem-solving pondering during the evening and enhances the mediating role of problem-solving pondering during the evening between daily customer mistreatment and next-day proactive customer service performance. Conversely, daily venting with coworkers reinforces the connection between daily customer mistreatment and affective rumination during the evening, and intensifies the mediating effect of affective rumination during the evening between daily customer mistreatment and next-day service sabotage.

Fluctuations of prolonged grief disorder reactions in the daily life of bereaved people: an experience sampling study

AbstractLoss-adaptation has been described as being characterized by ‘waves of grief’, which may result in a Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD). Although this assumption about the fluctuating nature of grief is supported by theoretical work, it is not (yet) supported by empirical work. We are the first to explore to what extent PGD reactions fluctuate in everyday life and whether fluctuations in PGD reactions are related to overall PGD levels using experience sampling methodology (ESM). Data from 38 bereaved individuals (74% women, on average 6 years post-loss, 47% lost a parent) were analyzed. For two weeks, five times per day, participants reported on the severity of 11 PGD reactions in the past three hours (ESM-PGD). At baseline, overall PGD severity (B-PGD) in the past two weeks was assessed with telephone-interviews using the Traumatic Grief Inventory–Clinician Administered. Root Mean Square of Successive Differences (RMSSD) were calculated to reflect fluctuations in ESM-PGD. Spearman correlations between RMSSD values of the 11 ESM-PGD reactions and B-PGD scores were computed. Mean B-PGD scores were below the clinical cut-off. Some fluctuations in ESM-PGD reactions were found, as indicated by varying RMSSD values, but also floor effects were detected. B-PGD levels were related to RMSSD values for ESM-PGD (ρ between 0.37 and 0.68, all p <.05; and between 0.36 and 0.63 after removal of floor effects). We found that (some) ESM-PGD reactions fluctuated in everyday life. This may offer new theoretical insights into loss-adaptation, which may result in optimizing PGD treatment.

Opening the contextual black box: a case for idiographic experience sampling of context for clinical applications.

The experience sampling method (ESM) is increasingly used as a clinical tool in mental health care. Currently, ESM studies pay relatively little attention to assessing contextual factors, such as a person's experience and perception of events, activities, and social interactions. This has been referred to as the 'contextual black box'. However, personalized context information is essential for applications in clinical settings to gain insight in triggering and maintaining factors of psychopathology. Typically, ESM context items are designed for nomothetic research questions, to capture broad factors that are shared across individuals, such as 'unpleasant events'. We provide an overview of such nomothetic items. We argue that these items have limited clinical utility and describe idiographic alternatives to ESM context assessment to obtain more specific and personalized information about individual clients. Specifically, we present three existing idiographic ESM techniques to context assessment with clinical potential. First, we illustrate open-ended ESM items that prompt clients to fill in text, such as a description of a specific unpleasant event they experienced. Second, we describe personalized response options and self-learning items that ask clients to define personally relevant response categories, such as types of events the client finds unpleasant. Third, we describe personalized ESM items that client and clinician select or formulate together for concepts of interest. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of these idiographic techniques. Additionally, we suggest future directions for clinical research aiming to address the 'contextual black box' and enhance the potential of ESM in mental health care.

Put me in coach: A daily examination of automated coaching on need for self‐knowledge and learning goal orientation through metacognitive activities

AbstractThe workplace coaching industry is growing through technology‐based applications that are designed to enhance coaching accessibility and scalability. Despite the increasing adoption of these technological innovations among practitioners, researchers have little understanding of the theoretical mechanisms by which these technologies impact coachees. Further, rigorous research examining the outcomes of these applications is lacking. This study focused specifically on automated coaching, a nascent but growing type of coaching program that allows users to access customized insights about themselves and their colleagues in a digital application. We applied objective self‐awareness theory to examine how engagement in an automated coaching platform facilitates self‐reflective processes on a day‐to‐day basis. In an experience sampling study of 84 employed users of an automated coaching platform, we found that engagement in automated coaching significantly increased metacognitive activities on a daily basis. Further, these effects spilled over, positively influencing the next‐day need for self‐knowledge and learning goal orientation. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings as they relate to workplace coaching.

EXPRESS: Navigating Gen Z hospitality employees’ inter-role conflict: A multi-level examination of work–personal conflict

Gen Z is gaining prominence in the hospitality industry workforce, making it critical to explore the dynamic interplay between Gen Z hospitality employees’ personal and work lives. Drawing on role stress theory, this daily diary study examines the role of work–personal conflict in Gen Z hospitality employees’ daily lives. Data was collected from 91 Gen Z Chinese hotel employees using the experience sampling method. The results show that work-to-personal and personal-to-work conflict at the within-person level increases turnover intention via emotional exhaustion. Regarding outcomes in the nonwork domain, work-to-personal conflict positively influences nostalgia. Furthermore, workplace fun at the within-person level and person–job fit at the between-person level moderate the relationship between work-to-personal conflict and emotional exhaustion. Based on the findings, hospitality companies should try to increase the fun of their employees’ daily work and improve person–job fit to mitigate work–personal conflict among Gen Z employees.

Differences in ongoing thought between autistic and non-autistic adults

Autistic people may be distinguishable from non-autistic individuals in the content and modality of their thoughts. Such differences potentially underlie both psychological vulnerability and strengths, motivating the need to better understand autistic thought patterns. In non-clinical undergraduates, a recent study found that autistic traits were associated with thinking more in words than images. However, it is unclear whether such differences in thought are present in clinically diagnosed autistic individuals. The current study applied the same methods (multidimensional experience sampling during an N-back task) to examine ongoing thought in autistic and non-autistic adults. We found that autistic individuals showed less variability in the modality of their thoughts between easy and difficult task contexts. While both non-autistic and autistic participants tended to report thinking more in words during the difficult task context, the difference between conditions was significantly smaller for the autistic group. In addition, autistic individuals showed a weaker coupling between task performance and off-task social thinking, a finding that may be related to differences in social processing during the off-task state. Overall, our results provide a clinical replication and extension of previous work, highlighting the differential effects of changing external context on internal mental states in autism.

Why does Creativity Foster Well-Being? Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness during Everyday Creative Activities

The study of creativity in daily life explores creativity as it happens. A consistent finding is that engaging in creative activities predicts greater positive emotions, particularly for activated positive states. To understand why creative activity might foster well-being, we turned to self-determination theory’s (SDT) organismic needs—autonomy, competence, and relatedness. We conducted a seven-day experience sampling study of 125 university students, many majoring in creative fields. We asked about current creative activity, emotional state, and experience of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. At the within-person level, all three needs significantly mediated the relationship between doing something creative and increased positive emotion and reduced negative emotion, with the most consistent effects for high arousal positive emotion and low arousal negative emotion.

Translational assessment of anhedonia components: Significant associations between reward anticipation measured via behavioural task performance, daily smartphone reports, and general anhedonia questionnaires

Anhedonia, a reduction in pleasure in previously enjoyed activities, is a hallmark feature of depression and is also of transdiagnostic relevance to many psychiatric disorders. Treatment and measurement of anhedonia are significant challenges. We examine anhedonia components, combining experimental training, with multimodal anhedonia assessment, comprising standard questionnaire instruments, a widely-used behavioural task, and daily reports of reward experience. Seventy-eight adults (74.4% female) completed both positive and negative cognitive bias modification training, a laboratory-based behavioural measure of reward anticipation and motivation, the Effort-Expenditure for Reward Task (EEfRT), and seven days of experience sampling via their smartphones.We found no evidence that cognitive bias modification training affected choices to engage in the high-effort trials on the EEfRT task, theorised to reflect reward anticipation. We also did not find the expected associations between baseline measures of anhedonia and reward sensitivity and response to training. Behavioural performance on the low probability EEfRT trials indicating higher reward anticipation was significantly associated with daily reports of anticipated reward. Daily reported reward anticipation and consumption were also associated with the questionnaire measure of anhedonia. Our findings demonstrate that traditional anhedonia questionnaire measures, and a laboratory-based measure of an anhedonia component, can translate to reported experiences of reward in real-world contexts. We demonstrate the specificity of associations between the laboratory measure, designed to measure reward anticipation and not consumption, and real-world reports.

Use of the Time-Based Experience Sampling Method in Older Adults

Abstract: Older adults represent an increasing proportion of the world’s population and are an important target group for psychological research. The experience sampling method (ESM) has the potential to generate unique insights into the daily lives of older adults, but its application also brings challenges. We provide a systematic review of studies applying time-based ESM (tb-ESM) with participants of 65 years and older in their natural environment, focusing on the studies’ specific (1) (sub)populations and contexts, (2) tb-ESM designs, and (3) rate of study adherence. We searched Medline, Web of Science, Cinahl, Psychology Database, and OSF preprints for eligible reports published from 2007 onwards. After screening 549 records, 54 reports on 31 unique studies were included in the narrative synthesis. Most studies sampled healthy community-dwelling older adults and applied semi-randomized signal schedules. Mobile assessments were much more common than in an earlier review with studies published before 2007 and could be implemented successfully. Recommendations for future tb-ESM studies in older adults are made regarding training and follow-up, custom signal modalities and schedules, and adapted response recording methods. Future aging tb-ESM studies should be mindful of the inclusion of more diverse samples and the evaluation of participant adherence and burden.

Generativity across adulthood: how nature exposure and future time perspective shape motivation for social and ecological engagement

ABSTRACT Objective The motivation to leave a legacy for future generations and society’s continuity is an important aspect of adult development. However, the shorter time horizon that comes with ageing might lead to prioritising more immediately rewarding goals than long-term society-beneficial (e.g., climate-proactive) goals. This study investigates the role of nature exposure and future time perspective, as well as their joint interplay in the context of social and ecological generativity across adulthood. Method In total, 115 individuals aged 18–85 years (M = 38.10 years, SD = 16.53 years, age-range 18-85; 67% female) participated in an experience sampling study and reported their future time perspective and social and ecological generativity at the baseline, and nature exposure in their daily situations. Results The results of the analyses using aggregated data set showed that nature exposure facilitates the concern for future generations and the environment in middle-aged and older (but not in younger) adults with shorter future time perspective. Conclusion Nature exposure can be used to enhance motivation for societal involvement in middle and older adulthood, which in turn could contribute to the well-being and sustainability of future generations.

The choreography of engagement in the language classroom: Exploring the dynamic interplay between learner and teacher engagement

While a growing body of research has focused on learner engagement, teacher engagement remains largely underresearched. The purpose of this study is to examine how the engagement of teachers and learners develops in real-time throughout three English language lessons, and how they interrelate over time. Participants in the study were six students from one fourth-year English class at an Austrian middle school and their teacher. Experience Sampling Method (ESM) data were collected through the M-Path app which prompted learners and their teacher to chart their real-time levels of behavioural, emotional, and cognitive engagement at 7-minute intervals throughout three English lessons. ESM data were complemented by classroom observations, video-audio recordings of the lessons, and stimulated recall interviews cued by ESM data for both teacher and learners. Findings revealed the dynamic and multifaceted nature of learner and teacher engagement, and their complex reciprocal interactions.

Fresh as a daisy: Within‐person associations between sleep, vitality, and self‐ and other‐rated job performance

SummaryFrom a resource perspective, employees' sleep quality, sleep duration, and feelings of vitality are believed to predict important work‐related outcomes. However, many studies ignore the dynamic nature of the constructs or rely primarily on self‐reported data. Including both self‐ and other‐ratings of daily job performance, we examined the extent to which daily sleep quality and duration predict daily job performance, and whether these relationships are mediated by vitality. Student teachers (N = 165), internship supervisors (N = 97), and students (i.e., targets; N = 69 classes) participated in an experience sampling study with morning assessments of sleep duration and quality (n = 1,762 and n = 869), and two daily assessments of vitality (n = 2,207) and performance (self‐, supervisor‐, and target‐rated; n = 2,160, n = 1,113, and n = 1,087). Multilevel path analyses suggested that 1) sleep quality but not duration predicted individuals' vitality and self‐ and target‐rated job performance, 2) vitality was positively associated with performance according to each rating source, and 3) midday vitality did not predict afternoon performance, nor did it mediate the relationship between sleep and afternoon performance. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.