How was your day? Convergence of aggregated momentary and retrospective end-of-day affect ratings across the adult life span.

How was your day? Convergence of aggregated momentary and retrospective end-of-day affect ratings across the adult life span. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2019 May 09;: Authors: Neubauer AB, Scott SB, Sliwinski MJ, Smyth JM Abstract Daily diary studies and experience sampling studies examine day-to-day variations in affect using different rating types: The former typically collect retrospective affect reports at the end of the day, whereas the latter collects multiple momentary assessments across the day. The present study examined the convergence of (aggregated) momentary assessments collected repeatedly within a day and retrospective assessments collected at the end of the day. Building on prior research on the memory-experience gap and the peak-and-end rule we predicted that participants would report more intense retrospective affect than aggregated momentary affect, and that retrospective affect would be biased toward the peak and the most recent affect of the day. Based on socioemotional selectivity theory and the strength and vulnerability integration model, age differences in these convergence indicators were expected. Findings from 2 age-heterogeneous ecological momentary assessment/daily diary hybrid studies (N = 242, 25-65 years; and N = 175, 20-79 years) revealed (a) a memory-experience gap for negative affect (more intense retrospective ratings than aggregated momentary ratings) that is attenuated with advancing age; (b) only a sm...
Source: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: J Pers Soc Psychol Source Type: research