BACKGROUND:Daily affect fluctuates in response to multiple co-occurring daily-life processes, yet these factors are often studied in isolation, limiting insight into their collective and relative contributions. METHODS:We analyzed ecological momentary assessment data from 1396 adults who completed three assessments per day for 30 days (up to 90 observations per person). Multilevel models examined the unique within-person associations of five daily-life processes assessed over the preceding six hours (negative events, sleep quality, feeling emotionally off balance, appraisal of social company, and physical activity) with negative affect (NA) and positive affect (PA). RESULTS:Collectively, the five processes explained ∼15% of within-person variance in NA and ∼ 20% in PA. Feeling emotionally off balance showed the largest unique associations with both higher NA and lower PA, while sleep quality also showed unique associations with both affective dimensions. More favorable appraisals of social company and greater physical activity were associated with higher subsequent PA, whereas negative events were not uniquely associated with either NA or PA in the full multivariable models. CONCLUSIONS:In multivariable models of daily life, feeling emotionally off balance and sleep quality showed relatively large unique associations with within-person affective fluctuations across a six-hour interval. These findings underscore the value of multivariable EMA approaches for identifying which daily-life processes retain prospective associations with affect over time. However, conclusions should be interpreted with caution given the six-hour assessment interval, and the conditional nature of estimates from joint multivariable models.

The Experience Sampling Method (ESM) is increasingly used by researchers from various disciplines to answer novel questions about individuals’ daily lives. Measurement best practices have long been overlooked in ESM research, and recent reviews show that item quality is often not reported in ESM studies. The absence of information about item quality may partly be explained by the lack of consensus on how ESM item quality should be evaluated. As part of the ESM Item Repository project (esmitemrepository.com) — an international open science initiative that collects ESM items in an open item bank and evaluates their quality — we brought together 42 international ESM experts to develop an ESM item quality assessment tool. In four Delphi phases, experts suggested 57 item quality criteria, rated the criteria, provided arguments for and against the criteria, and rated the criteria again, considering reflections from other experts. The result of the Delphi process is ESM-Q: A quality assessment tool consisting of 10 core criteria, as well as an additional 15 supplementary criteria, to be used depending on the type of items being rated and the availability of supplementary information. The criteria cover topics ranging from construct validity to the optimal wording of items. ESM-Q can aid ESM researchers in selecting existing ESM items, developing new high-quality ESM items, and evaluating the quality of ESM items in systematic reviews. Expert reflections also highlight open research questions surrounding ESM item design that form a research agenda for ESM measurement.

Physical activity can improve mental health by improving mood and by lowering depressive symptoms. This systematic review uses a structured narrative synthesis to summarise within‐person associations between physical activity and affect in naturalistic settings, and how these associations may differ by level of depressive symptomatology. We also reviewed the methodological choices that could influence these outcomes and provide a methodological roadmap as a recommendation for future studies. A systematic review was conducted up to December 2024 of studies that addressed within‐person associations between daily physical activity and affect using ambulatory assessment techniques in individuals aged 4–65 years and assessed depressive symptoms. Our selection yielded 32 eligible studies. A consistent finding was the positive within‐person association between physical activity and concurrent or subsequent positive affect, while results were mixed for negative affect. Results were further inconclusive regarding the role of depression in this relationship. Common challenges affecting replicability include an often‐inadequate assessment of measurement reliability and validity, and insufficient controls for relevant (contextual) factors in these analyses, such as the length of the time‐lag and mode of physical activity. Future studies should employ emerging best practices regarding study design, analysis and reporting of ambulatory assessment data. Such rigorous research practice will strengthen our understanding of these relationships and further inform more effective, personalised physical activity interventions to improve mood and depressive symptoms.

Background: Psychological resilience, as a potential protective factor, has been linked to enhanced wellbeing and reduced psychopathology. This study investigated the predictors, associations, and prospective effects of resilience to daily hassles in both short-term (across days) and long-term (across months) contexts. Methods: Daily resilience was measured through self-reported abilities to cope with daily hassles on a day-to-day basis for 30 days using Experience Sampling Methods in a sample of 86 outpatients diagnosed with depression. Results: Daily resilience correlated with baseline depression (r = -0.31; p < .001), but not with the five other personal and social resources we investigated. As hypothesized, daily resilience co-varied with daily wellbeing on a day-to-day basis (p = <0.001), was predictive of shifts in wellbeing across days (p = <0.01), and associated with patients' improvements in depression and dysfunction three months later (B = -0.48 & -0.49; p < .001) and six months later (B = -0.55 & -0.57; p < .001). Limitations: It should be noted that the study's participants were recruited from a larger Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT), and approximately 40% of patients experienced daily hassles. Despite this limitation, the findings suggest that daily resilience may hold promise as a crucial factor to inform intervention strategies and programs aimed at preventing depression relapse. Conclusion: Daily resilience may well be a promising factor to inform intervention strategies and programmes that aim to prevent (relapse of) depression.

Encouraging engagement in rewarding or pleasant activities is one of the most important treatment goals for depression. Mental imagery exercises have been shown to increase the motivation for planned behaviour in the lab but it is unclear whether this is also the case in daily life. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the effect of mental imagery exercises on motivation and behaviour in daily life. Participants with depressive symptoms (N = 59) were randomly assigned to a group receiving mental imagery (MI) exercises or a control group receiving relaxation (RE) exercises via study phones. We employed an experience sampling design with 10 assessments per day for 10 days (three days baseline, four days with two exercises per day and three days post-intervention). Data was analysed using t-tests and multilevel linear regression analyses. As predicted, MI exercises enhanced motivation and reward anticipation during the intervention phase compared to RE. However, MI did not enhance active behaviour or strengthen the temporal association from reward anticipation (t-1) to active behaviour (t). Mental imagery exercises can act as a motivational amplifier but its effects on behaviour and real-life reward processes remain to be elucidated.

Engagement in activities increases positive affect (Reward Path 1), which subsequently reinforces motivation (Reward Path 2), and hence future engagement in activities (Reward Path 3). Strong connections between these three reward loop components are considered adaptive, and might be disturbed in depression. Although some ecological nomen-tary assessment (EMA) studies have investigated the cross-sectional association between separate reward paths and individuals' level of depression, no EMA study has looked into the association between individuals' reward loop strength and depressive symptom course. The present EMA study assessed reward loop functioning (5x/day, 28 days) of 46 outpatients starting depression treatment at secondary mental health services and monitored with the Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology-Self-Report (IDS-SR) during a 7-month period. Results of multilevel regression analyses showed significant within-person asso-ciations for Reward Path 1 (b = 0.21, p < .001), Reward Path 2 (b = 0.43, p < .001), and Reward Path 3 (b = 0.20, p < .001). Stronger average reward loops (i.e., within -person mean of all reward paths) did not relate to participants' improvement in depressive symptoms over time. Path-specific results revealed that Reward Paths 1 and 2 may have partly opposite effects on depressive symptom course. Together, our findings suggest that reward pro-cesses in daily life might be best studied separately and that further investigation is warranted to explore under what circumstances strong paths are adaptive or not.

The unique and synergistic effects of daily risk and protective factors thatshape our moods remain largely unknown because each is typically studied in isolation. Using experience sampling techniques 1396 Dutch adults reported on their positive and negative affect (PA/NA), social contact, emotion coping, physical activity, sleep quality, and negative events; thrice daily for 30 days (90 assessments). These five risk/protective factors combined explained approximately 15% of the variation in PA and 23% in NA, with emotioncoping and sleep quality as the strongest predictors. All risk and protective factors influenced subsequent mental health, but examined collectively, only coping ability and sleep quality significantly affected individuals’ mental health. These results identify coping and sleep as the most interesting targets for depression interventions and psychotherapy to enhance positive mood and decrease negative mood.

Open Science (OS) increases the quality, efficiency, and impact of science. This has been widely recognised by scholars, funders, and policy makers. However, despite the increasing availability of infrastructure supporting OS and the rise in policies and incentives to change behavior, OS practices are not yet the norm. While pioneering researchers are developing and embracing OS practices, the majority sticks to the status quo. To transition from pioneering to common practice, we need to engage a critical proportion of the academic community. In this transition, Open Science Communities (OSCs) play a key role. OSCs are bottom-up learning groups of scholars that discuss OS practices, within and across disciplines. They make OS knowledge and know-how more visible and accessible, and facilitate communication among scholars and policy makers. By the same token, community members shape the transition to OS such that it is most beneficial for researchers, science, and society. Over the past two years, eleven OSCs were founded at several Dutch university cities, with approximately 700 members in total (at the time of writing). In other countries, similar OSCs are starting up. In this paper, we discuss the pivotal role OSCs play in the large-scale transition to OS and provide practical information on how to start a local OSC. We emphasize that, despite the grassroot character of OSCs, support from universities is critical for OSCs to be viable, effective, and sustainable.

Background: Anhedonia is a common symptom of several disorders, but cost-effective treatments that focus on anhedonia specifically have been lacking. Therefore, personalized lifestyle advice has recently been investigated as a suitable means of enhancing pleasure and positive affect (PA) in young adults with anhedonia. This intervention provided individuals with a personalized lifestyle advice which was based on observed individual patterns of lifestyle behaviors and experienced pleasure in daily life. The present study extends this previous work by examining a potential mechanism of treatment success, affective reactivity. Methods: We explored changes in affective reactivity to events in daily life from pre- to post-intervention in a subclinical sample of young adults with anhedonia (N = 69). Using the Experience Sampling Method (ESM), participants answered questions on their activities, their pleasure levels, PA and negative affect (NA) before and after the intervention. Results: Multilevel analysis revealed that participants did not experience an altered affective reactivity to positive events after the intervention. The affective reactivity to negative events depended on the level of improvement in mean-PA after the lifestyle advice intervention. Limitations: The present study used a subclinical sample with the majority of participants being female which limited the generalizability of the findings. Conclusion: This study suggests that an altered affective reactivity to negative events is an underlying mechanism of the effectiveness of a personalized lifestyle advice.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced developmental researchers to rethink their traditional research practices. The growing need to study infant development at a distance has shifted our research paradigm to online and digital monitoring of infants and families, using electronic devices, such as smartphones. In this practical guide, we introduce the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) – a research method to collect data, in the moment, on multiple occasions over time – for examining infant development at a distance. ESM is highly suited for assessing dynamic processes of infant development and family dynamics, such as parent-infant interactions and parenting practices. It can also be used to track highly fluctuating family dynamics (e.g., infant and parental mood or behavior) and routines (e.g., activity levels and feeding practices). The aim of the current paper was to provide an overview by explaining what ESM is and for what types of research ESM is best suited. Next, we provide a brief step-by-step guide on how to start and run an ESM study, including preregistration, development of a questionnaire, using wearables and other hardware, planning and design considerations, and examples of possible analysis techniques. Finally, we discuss common pitfalls of ESM research and how to avoid them.

In this short review, we describe recent trends from Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) research investigating positive affect (PA) in relation to mood disorders. Aside from notable exceptions (e.g. mania), most mood disorders involve relatively lower levels of PA in daily life, often combined with a larger level of variability in PA. In reaction to positive events, studies show a puzzling `mood brightening' effect in individuals with mood disorder symptoms that suggests hyper responsiveness to real-life rewards. Studies into anhedonia (i.e. lack of, or lower levels of PA) suggest that high-arousal PA and anticipatory PA are potential targets for intervention. Despite PA-focused EMA-interventions bear promises of greater therapeutic effectiveness, so far, these promises have not materialized yet.

In 2001, Anderson and Green [2001. Suppressing unwanted memories by executive control. Nature, 410(6826), 366-369] showed memory suppression using a novel Think/No-think (TNT) task. When participants attempted to prevent studied words from entering awareness, they reported fewer of those words than baseline words in subsequent cued recall (i.e., suppression effect). The TNT literature contains predominantly positive findings and few null-results. Therefore we report unpublished replications conducted in the 2000s (N = 49; N = 36). As the features of the data obtained with the TNT task call for a variety of plausible solutions, we report parallel "universes" of data-analyses (i.e., multiverse analysis) testing the suppression effect. Two published studies (Wessel et al., 2005. Dissociation and memory suppression: A comparison of high and low dissociative individuals' performance on the Think-No think Task. Personality and Individual Differences, 39(8), 1461-1470, N = 68; Wessel et al., 2010. Cognitive control and suppression of memories of an emotional film. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 41(2), 83-89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbtep.2009.10.005, N = 80) were reanalysed in a similar fashion. For recall probed with studied cues (Same Probes, SP), some tests (sample 3) or all (samples 2 and 4) showed statistically significant suppression effects, whereas in sample 1, only one test showed significance. Recall probed with novel cues (Independent Probes, IP) predominantly rendered non-significant results. The absence of statistically significant IP suppression effects raises problems for inhibition theory and its implication that repression is a viable mechanism of forgetting. The pre-registration, materials, data, and code are publicly available (https://osf.io/qgcy5/).

In 2004, the Bangor Gambling Task (BGT) was put forward as a simplified of the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) - one of the primary experimental paradigms used to assess emotion-based decision making under uncertainty. We aimed to investigate the suitability of the BGT as a longer-term re-assessment tool of the IGT. Method: Using a N = 176 focused subsample of the large ongoing prospective cohort study Tracking Adolescents’ Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS), we investigated three suitability criteria with regard to: 1) incremental learning patterns within each task, 2) correlation between the net-scores of tasks, and 3) within-level change in emotion-based decision-making by social stress as predicted by evolutionary theories. One out of three suitability criteria were met, that is, we found similar incremental learning patterns in gambling performance as reported in 2004, but no correlation between net scores of both tasks, nor a decrease in approach-related gambling choices in individuals exposed to social adversity versus controls. Although the BGT may be a useful tool for clinical neuropsychologists, it may be less suited to test changes in adolescents’ decision making performance in combination with the IGT over a larger time frame.

Background: Anhedonia is one of the two core symptoms of MDD, described as the decreased ability to experience pleasure in daily life. We aimed to describe anhedonia in everyday life of patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), and investigate its link to social stress. We semi-randomly sampled anhedonia and social stress ten times a day, for seven consecutive days, by means of Experience Sampling Methods in the daily life of 53 MDD patients. Results: Multilevel analyses showed that anhedonia was less severe when patient were in company of others (versus being alone). Social stress was linked to anhedonia, both concurrently and prospectively. Albeit less strongly, anhedonia also prospectively predicted increases in social stress. Conclusions: Experiencing an increase in social stress makes it harder for depressed patients to experience pleasure in both current and future activities, suggesting that social stressors might put MDD patients at risk for the development of anhedonia.

Background Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is the leading cause of disability worldwide. The cardinal features of MDD are depressed mood and anhedonia. Anhedonia is defined as a “markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities of the day”, and has generally been investigated on group-level using retrospective data (e.g. via questionnaire/interview). However, inferences based on group-level findings not necessarily generalize to daily life experiences within individuals. Methods We repeatedly sampled pleasurable experiences within individuals’ daily lives by means of Experience Sampling Methods, and compared how positive affect unfolded in the daily life of healthy controls versus patients diagnosed with MDD and anhedonia. We sampled Positive Affect (PA) and reward experiences on 10 semi-random time points a day, for seven days in the daily lives of 47 MDD patients with anhedonia, and 40 controls. Results Multilevel models showed that anhedonia was associated with low PA, but not to differences in PA dynamics, nor reward frequency in daily life. In reaction to rewards, MDD patients with anhedonia showed no difference in their increase in PA (i.e., PA reactivity), and showed no signs of a faster return to baseline thereafter (i.e., PA recovery). Conclusions Our results suggest that the dynamical signature of anhedonia in MDD can be described best as a lower average level of PA, and “normal” in terms of PA dynamics, daily reward reactivity and reward recovery. Preregistration: https://osf.io/gmfsc/register/565fb3678c5e4a66b5582f67 . Preprint: https://osf.io/cfkts

Imagine that you can no longer enjoy your favorite meal or being with your friends. Would you still like to cook or enjoy your annual outing with friends? Probably not. We don't often think about it, but pleasure is important ... But why? And how can one regain the pleasure in life when one has lost it?

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0125383.].

The Domains Of Pleasure Scale (DOPS) is a newly developed questionnaire designed to measure the multifaceted aspects of pleasure. It assesses levels of pleasure across different domains (e.g., social, physical). The psychometric properties of the DOPS were tested in two studies (Study 1: N = 2937, Mage = 21.4 years, SD = 1.9; Study 2: N = 1187, Mage = 22.84, SD = 2.23). In line with the multifaceted view of pleasure experiences, comparisons with a one factor solution showed that pleasure may be best investigated domain specific rather than aggregated over all items. Across studies, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis showed that pleasure was reliably measured in the domains of social pleasure, sexual pleasure, perceptual pleasure, and pleasure in personal achievements. Measurement invariance was established across sex and educational level in Study 1, but not in Study 2. The DOPS is a promising instrument to measure pleasure across different domains and may help researchers and clinicians to pinpoint interventions.

© 2018, American Psychological Association. This paper is not the copy of record and maynot exactly replicate the final, authoritative version of the article. Please do not copy or citewithout authors permission. The final article will be available, upon publication, via its DOI:10.1037/emo0000424.