SPA 2023 - Using ecological momentary assessment to evaluate personality constructs (1.5 CEs)

Abstract

Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is an increasingly popular assessment method used to understand how personality constructs manifest in daily life. Such research is useful in enhancing external validity, limiting retrospective biases, and matching the data sampling frequency to the timescale (e.g. event-contingent, hours, days) the phenomenon is presumed to occur. This symposium brings together four presentations where EMA data is used to illuminate dynamic processes related to personality constructs. Julianne Wu presents a 14-day diary study to examine the day-to-day stability of identity concepts (e.g. self-reflection, self-rumination, differentiation vs. enmeshment) and how vacillations in identity coincide with maladaptive outcomes in daily life. Brooke Tompkins and colleagues use two 14-day diary studies to examine how narcissistic grandiosity and vulnerability at baseline relate to daily measures of interpersonal sensitivities and daily measures of pathological personality traits. Dr. Kevin Meehan and colleagues employ an event-contingent design to examine within-person linkages among interpersonal perceptions and affects, and then examines how dimensions of narcissism strengthen these linkages. Finally, Sydney Neil and colleagues measures psychological defenses and cognitive distortions at baseline and as temporally-dynamic constructs through three event-contingent EMA samples. They examine how baseline and temporally-dynamic assessed defenses/distortions relate to psychopathology in daily life. Taken together, this collection of research talks demonstrates the potential of EMA to understand personality constructs. In particular, these talks highlight the importance of thinking through timescale (e.g. daily versus event-contingent) in measuring maladaptive processes resulting from personality dysfunction, whether and how to capture personality processes themselves as temporally-dynamic entities, and what limitations remain from using EMA methods to capture a person’s experience in daily life.

Chair

Michael Roche | West Chester University

Goals & Objectives

1. To compare event-contingent and daily diary EMA designs in terms of strengths/weaknesses and applicability to capturing maladaptive outcomes in daily life.
2. To analyze trade-offs in measuring personality through single-occasion surveys versus temporally-dynamic assessments