Mental health in daily life: studying mental health and related processes using ecological momentary assessment
Method Stream: Longitudinal Intensive Methods
ECs: Both 14 and 23 EC thesis possible
Description:
Traditionally, psychological research focusses on the assessment of psychological processes in one specific or only a few moments. One alternative way of assessing psychological processes is ecological momentary assessment (EMA). EMA data can for example be collected via smartphone apps that alert the user to complete questions on a certain number of preset or random moments during the day, for example four times per day for a period of two weeks. EMA has the advantage that it is less prone to recall bias, is able to capture dynamic aspects of psychological processes and it can be used to understand the context in which psychological processes unfold. It also allows to study person-specific associations and individual differences.
For this thesis, you will use existing datasets in which several constructs have been assessed using EMA. These constructs include stressful events, negative and positive affect, positive psychological processes such as gratitude or self-compassion and emotion regulation strategies such as rumination or acceptance. You will look for a specific research question within this dataset that you find interesting and that can be answered with this existing data. An example research question could be: Is the association between stressful events and negative affect moderated by momentary rumination? And what role does context play in this situation? Or: Is momentary self-compassion associated with negative affect? And how does this association differ between individuals? 23 ECs is also possible for this thesis and would mean that you would collect data yourself on a questions related to mental health in daily life using EMA.