Suicide is a complex phenomenon that occurs on a continuum with thoughts of suicide, plans and attempts that can eventually result in death. Suicide is one of the top ten reasons for death in most countries. Governments are challenging healthcare systems to reduce suicide through preventative healthcare. The first paper explores psychological interventions for people with suicidal thoughts and behaviours delivered through technology. It explores the evidence-base for internet-based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, telephone based interventions, CD-ROMs and other Internet-based therapies. Nineteen papers were identified with four papers of good quality evidence supporting Internet-based cognitive behavioural interventions. The second paper is a feasibility and acceptability study which explores a diary and intervention delivered through a mobile phone. Twenty participants were recruited through adult secondary care community mental health teams in the North West of England. High completion rates and low dropout rates were found. Participants rated the technology and interventions high in terms of practicality, ease of use and overall satisfaction with the programme and reported that it was moderately helpful. Preliminary data on effectiveness suggests reactivity to the method in the short term but a reduction in symptoms overall. These results and ESM methodology must be treated with caution for people with suicidal thoughts due to the increase in symptoms found following the intervention. The third paper offers a critical reflection on the first and second papers.

The principal aim of this doctoral research has been to investigate whether various popular methods of emotion elicitation perform differently in terms of self-reported participant affect - and if so, whether any of them is better able to mimic real-life emotional situations. A secondary goal has been to understand how continuous affect can be classified into discrete categories - whether by using clustering algorithms, or resorting to human participants for creating the classifications. A variety of research directions subserved these main goals: firstly, developing data-driven strategies for selecting 'appropriate' stimuli, and matching them across various stimulus modalities (i.e., words, sounds, images,films and virtual environments / VEs); secondly, comparing the chosen modalities on various self-report measures (with VEs assessed both with and without a head-mounted display / HMD); thirdly, comparing how humans classify emotional information vs. a clustering algorithm; and finally, comparing all five lab-based stimulus modalities to emotional data collected via an experience sampling phone app. Findings / outputs discussed will include a matched database of stimuli geared towards lab use, how the choice of stimulus modality may affect research results, the links (or discrepancies) between human and machine classification of emotional information, as well as range restriction affecting lab stimuli relative to `real-life' emotional phenomena.

Ausgehend von einer Charakterisierung des Flow-Erlebens als gaenzliches Aufgehen in einem glatt laufenden Taetigkeitsvollzug, den man trotz hoher Beanspruchung noch unter Kontrolle hat, wird auf die Erfassung dieser Motivationskomponente eingegangen. Dargestellt und diskutiert werden Vor- und Nachteile der bisherigen qualitativen (Interviews) und quantitativen Flow-Erfassung (Experience Sampling Method (ESM)) . Ausfuehrlicher wird eine "Flow-Kurzskala" (FKS) beschrieben, die mit zehn Items alle qualitativ verschiedenen Komponenten des Flow-Erlebens oekonomisch und reliabel erfasst. Sie liefert einen Gesamtwert sowie Werte fuer zwei Subskalen (glatter automatisierter Verlauf sowie Absorbiertheit). Daneben erfassen drei zusaetzliche Items die Besorgnis in der aktuellen Situation. Berichtet werden Vergleichskennwerte aus punktuellen Messungen und ESM-Studien. Die hoechsten Werte fuer Flow und Besorgnis wurden bislang bei Graffiti-Sprayern gefunden. Bei einer intellektuell herausfordernden Aufgabe (Postkorbuebung) sind die FKS-Werte mit der Hoffnung-auf-Erfolg-Komponente des Leistungsmotivs korreliert. Furcht-vor-Misserfolg korreliert dagegen mit dem Besorgniswert der FKS. Flow waehrend der Bearbeitung von Uebungsaufgaben fuer Statistik lieferte einen signifikanten Beitrag zur Vorhersage der nachfolgenden Klausurleistung. Dieser Beitrag blieb erhalten, auch wenn Faehigkeitsmasse kontrolliert wurden. (Buch/A.G. - ZPID)

Considering the continuous design activities that are performed throughout the design projects, design students go through several stages of decision makings, and sometimes they experience problematic situations in between consecutive supervisory meetings. Revealing all experiences during the discussions with supervisors, thus communicating the ideas could be sometimes difficult. In order to provide a better guidance, it is also important for supervisors to understand students&rsquo / process in between these meetings. There are available tools used in the fields like education or health in order to monitor an individual&rsquo / s daily life in relation to the context (e.g. time, place, activity) and personal circumstances (e.g. emotions, feelings, ideas). These tools are developed based on experience sampling method (ESM), a research method focus on collecting self-reported data from participants in order to measure their daily life experiences, especially during a long period of time. Since the target group and experience has different characteristics for each context, design of experience sampling tools are also gaining importance to address these specific experience according to individuals&rsquo / needs and expectations. Aiming at assisting design students to do regular self-reporting on their experiences, this study presents a background research for designing experience sampling tools that would be used by students and supervisors to keep track of students&rsquo / experiences throughout design projects. In this sense, this study intends assisting students self-reporting activities, translate the main design requirements of experience sampling tools into the context of design projects, as well as revealing guidelines for the future implications of ESM tools in design education

Peterson, Park, and Seligman (2005) have proposed that individuals seek to increase their well-being through three behavioural orientations; via pleasure, meaning, and engagement. The current study investigated how orientations to happiness influenced the pursuit and experience of daily activities using an experience sampling methodology (ESM). Daily activities were experienced as a blend of both hedonic and eudaimonic characteristics. Dominant orientation to happiness did not predict engaging in different daily activities. Trait orientations to happiness had some influence on the momentary experience of behaviour. Those scoring highest on all three orientations to happiness also rated their daily activities highest on momentary pleasure, meaning, engagement, and happiness. The results suggest that increasing all three orientations is a pathway to the full life and a balanced well-being portfolio.

This thesis examines potential associations between trait approach motivation and related measures, the everyday experience of affect and goal pursuit, and reward-related neural responses. The Behavioural Activation System (BAS) is a core motivational system, subserved by the neural reward circuitry, eliciting approach-type behaviour and positive emotion when activated by appetitive stimuli. Deficits in BAS sensitivity are thought to underlie the lack of motivation and positive affect (PA) that characterise anhedonia, whilst hyperactivation of the BAS has been linked to the increased goal-directed behaviour and positive affectivity associated with hypomania. In order to explore relationships between BAS sensitivity, goal pursuit, and reward processing, young participants, recruited from the student population (N = 65), and older participants, from the community (N = 63), underwent a 7-day period of experience sampling (ESM) to provide a naturalistic measure of momentary affect and goal-focused motivation. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI; in a subset of n = 28 and n = 31 respectively) was then used to investigate individual differences in sensitivity of brain reward-related systems to various social and non-social rewards. Limited support was found for the relationship between BAS traits and the more motivational aspects of goal pursuit and reward processing, whilst anhedonia seemed to pertain more to reward consumption, with few links to everyday goal pursuit. This would indicate that anhedonia might not be as closely related to BAS sensitivity as was initially anticipated. Finally, in order to examine real-world correlates of neural activation, the data from the naturalistic measure were correlated with reward-related activation. Everyday PA correlated with striatal activation when viewing pleasant images, but no other associations emerged. This would suggest that the basic measures of brain function in relation to the particular reward-related stimuli used might be of limited relevance to everyday affective experience and goal pursuit.

<p>Social dysfunction is a hallmark of schizophrenia and leads to significant disability and distress. Decreased positive and increased negative affect predict poorer social functioning in those with schizophrenia. Social functioning and affect have traditionally been measured in the laboratory; yet, these methods are limited. Experience sampling methods (ESM) offer more immediate, ecologically valid assessments of these constructs. The purpose of this study was to examine social functioning and affect in schizophrenia using a novel form of ESM that passively collects audio data. The two primary hypotheses were: 1) clinical status (schizophrenia versus control) will predict social functioning, level of positive affect, and level of negative affect; and 2) the relationship between clinical status and affect will be moderated by context (social versus non-social). Additional exploratory aims tested the convergent validity between traditional, laboratory-based assessments of social functioning and this novel ESM. Data was collected from 38 people with schizophrenia and 36 control participants; Results partially supported the hypotheses. As expected, laboratory measures of social functioning revealed that those with schizophrenia performed worse than controls. ESM measures of social functioning found that the schizophrenia group interacted with others at the same rate as the control group but did not exhibit as much social engagement. ESM measures of affect revealed the schizophrenia group reported more negative affect than controls, but no differences in positive affect were found. Social context did not moderate the relationship between clinical status and affect. Lastly, correlations between laboratory measures and ESM measures of social functioning were significant for the schizophrenia group but not the control group. Results further our understanding of social functioning and affect in those with schizophrenia and yield important implications for future work.</p>

Experience Sampling Method is a modern approach of studying human behavior. This research methodology is used in psycho-metrics to ask participant to provide feedback regarding the state of their health, opinion, etc. The collected data is then probed, analyzed and used for creating related statistical predictions. Despite the remarkable data that is produced with ESM, receiving data from the participants is not a straightforward task. It could either be via physical presence of the participant in certain labs or through special hand-held devices that are sometimes difficult to carry, maintain and use. A more advanced version of ESM is Mobile Experience Sampling Method . As mobile devices have become the de facto standard in human communication as well as ubiquitous multi-purpose portable devices, taking advantage of their features, especially their location-awareness functionality can help improve the experience sampling method. Therefore the focus of this thesis is on improving the method byimplementing a versatile mobile experience sampling toolkit that is locationaware and easy to use.

The Experience Sampling Method (ESM), a research technique, was initiated to understand human experience and behavior upon a certain subject. This subject can be a commercial product, a period of time or even the quality of our lives. The mostly used pattern in the ESM is questionnaire, a common example of which can be customer satisfactory survey. During the past three decades, the technology used in this kind of research has changed dramatically: from primitively written on paper to vividly popping up in your modern devices [1]. Therefore, a new approach called Mobile Experience Sampling has been developed, which relies on the ubiquitous computing technologies to collect data. Among these technologies, there is an emerging star— social network. Nowadays, everyone is networking, not really by actual socializing but via countless social network sites: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Life details are generously shared on these sites: what they do, where they go and, of course, how they feel. As the user population rockets, this special kind of sites has potentially become an ideal source for information/data collection of Experience Sampling. In this paper, quantitative and qualitative research methodologies are combined with the ESM to study the influence of social network on Mobile Experience Sampling. The study shows that the social network sites significantly affect the response and participation rate in the Mobile Experience Sampling experiment designed by the researcher, which indicates its influence on articipants compliance and motivation levels.

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