Moments that Matter? On the Complexity of using Triggers Based on Skin Conductance to Sample Arousing Events within an Experience Sampling Framework

Abstract

To sample situations that are psychologically arousing in daily life, we implemented an experience sampling strategy in which 82 Dutch young adults (Mage = 20.73) were triggered based on random time intervals and based on physiological skin conductance scores across a period of 5 days. When triggered, participants had to fill in short surveys on affect, situational characteristics and event characteristics on their smartphone. We found theoretically expected relationships between the skin conductance signal on the one hand and self‐reported arousal and positive energy (e.g. energetic and enthusiastic) on the other hand, although effect sizes were small. Unexpectedly, none of the negative affective scales (i.e. irritation, anxiety, and negative valence) were predicted by skin conductance levels. Despite the (partial) validity of the signal, a simple algorithm that triggered the survey based on relative increases of skin conductance levels produced counterintuitive results due to a dependence between level and slope. Additional exploratory analyses highlighted other skin conductance signal characteristics (i.e. autocorrelation, number of peaks, and change points) that might be worth examining when designing future algorithms to sample arousing moments. Overall, our experiences highlight not only the promise but also the complexity of real‐time measurement of physiological processes in daily life. © 2020 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology

Affective structure, measurement invariance, and reliability across different experience sampling protocols

“…Indeed, a more exploratory approach revealed that the additional relations between items could also be accounted for by specifying extra factors at the WP level. This is in line with findings from previous studies that have suggested a more nuanced affective structure within persons (Eadeh et al, 2019;Jacobson et al, 2020;van Halem et al, 2020). In the current data, this approach resulted in five correlated factors at the WP level that roughly reflected clusters of items characterized by varying degrees of valence and arousal (high arousal PA, high arousal NA, low arousal PA, low arousal NA).…”

The dynamics, processes, mechanisms, and functioning of personality: An overview of the field

“…Beyond experience sampling and related methods, novel technologies create the possibility of collecting data in daily life from various other sources (Wiernik et al, 2020), such as passively sensed psychophysiological data (Ebner‐Priemer & Kubiak, 2007); phone usage, GPS, and accelerometer data (Harari et al, 2017); microphone data (Mehl, 2017); or wearable camera data (Blake, Lee, De La Rosa, & Sherman, 2020). For instance, van Halem, Van Roekel, Kroencke, Kuper, and Denissen (2020) used wearables to examine the relations between skin conductance and affect in everyday life. In another study, Harari et al (2020) used smartphone sensing (capturing conversation behaviour from microphone sensors, calls, text messages, and social media messaging app usage from phone logs) to study predictors and personality correlates of daily social behaviours.…”

Using wearable biosensors and ecological momentary assessments for the detection of prolonged stress in real life

“…The mechanistic link supporting this claim is shown in our mediation analysis, which confirms that positive affect (partially) mediates the effect of week type on reduced arousal. While this may seem counterintuitive, physiological arousal through skin conductance and heart rate measures has shown to be responsive to both positive and negative events, showing that physiological arousal is not valence specific 27,[38][39][40][41] . Thus, the net effect of prolonged stress exposure (as operationalized in this study) stems in part from a reduction in overall arousal driven by reductions in positive mood that persist outside of peak moments of acute stress.…”

“…This builds on the initial findings of our mixed models and mediation analysis, showing that accounting for valence through mood is important in trying to separate stress-induced arousal from positive arousal. This problem is highlighted in studies using skin conductance trigger-based EMA to detect stress, which resulted in capturing positive arousal instead 39 .…”