Rafaeli, E. & Revelle, W. (2006). A premature
consensus: Are happiness and sadness truly opposite affects? Motivation and
Emotion, 30, 1-12. [PDF]
Within the debate on the
structure of affect, a consensus began emerging in the last decade regarding
the bipolarity of happiness–sadness. We argue that this consensus is premature.
Focusing on the psychometrics of momentary affect, particularly happiness and
sadness, and using a simulation study, a large-scale data set, and 2
experiments manipulating affect, we plot a map of affective space that departs
from the consensus. One key departure is the finding that happiness and sadness
are not bipolar opposites. Another is that nonuniform skewness plays a major
role in studies of affective structure, but can be addressed with appropriate
analyses.
Coifman, K.G., Bonanno, G.A., & Rafaeli, E.
(2006). Affect dynamics, bereavement and resilience to loss. Journal of
Happiness Studies, 8, 371-392. [PDF]
This investigation
applied Zautra and colleagues’ Dynamic Model of Affect (DMA; Zautra: 2003,
Emotions, Stress and Health (Oxford University Press, New York); Reich
et al.: 2003, Review of General Psychology 7(1), pp. 66–83) to help
understand resilience among a sample of middle-aged participants coping with
the recent death of a spouse or child. We replicated and extended this model by
examining interaffect correlations (individual correlations between negative
and positive affect over time) in resilient versus symptomatic bereaved people.
As predicted by the DMA, resilient bereaved had weaker (or less negative)
interaffect correlations than symptomatic bereaved even when controlling for
self-reported distress. These findings suggest that resilient individuals
possess a capacity for a more complex affective experience and that this
capacity serves a salutary function in the aftermath of aversive life events.
Perunovic, W.Q.E., Heller, D., & Rafaeli, E.
(2007). Within-person changes in the structure of emotion: The role of cultural
identification and language. Psychological Science, 18, 607-613. [PDF]
This study explored the
within-person dynamic organization of emotion in East-Asian Canadian bicultural
individuals as they function in two cultural worlds. Using a diary design, we
examined under what conditions their emotional structure resembles that of
Westerners or that of East Asians. As predicted, when these bicultural
individuals identified with a Western culture or had recently spoken a
non-Asian language, their positive and negative affect were inversely
associated. When they identified with an Asian culture or interacted in an
Asian language, this inverse association disappeared. This study shows that as
bicultural individuals identify and communicate with members of one or the
other cultural group, they may adopt a culturally congruent phenomenology,
including a distinct affective pattern.
Rafaeli, E., Rogers, G.M., & Revelle, W.
(2007). Affective synchrony: Individual differences in mixed emotions.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 915-932. [PDF]
Most models of affect
suggest either inverse or null associations between positivity and
negativity. Recent work has highlighted situations that sometimes
lead to mixed positive-negative affect. Focusing on the counterpart
to these situational factors, the authors explore the
individual-difference tendency toward mixed emotions, which they
term affective synchrony. In five studies, the authors show that
some individuals demonstrate affective synchrony (overlapping
experience of positive and negative moods), others a-synchrony
(positive and negative mood that fluctuate independently), and still
others de-synchrony (positive and negative moods that function as
bipolar opposites). These tendencies are stable over time within
persons, vary broadly across individuals, and are associated with
individual differences in cognitive representation of self and of
emotions.
Diary methods and time-series
analysis papers
Bolger, N., Davis, A., & Rafaeli, E. (2003) Diary methods: Capturing life as it is lived. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 579-616. [PDF]
In diary
studies, people provide frequent reports on the events and experiences of their
daily lives. These reports capture the particulars of experience in a way that
is not possible using traditional designs. We review the types of research
questions that diary methods are best equipped to answer, the main designs that
can be used, current technology for obtaining diary reports, and appropriate
data analysis strategies. Major recent developments include the use of electronic
forms of data collection and multilevel models in data analysis. We identify
several areas of research opportunities: 1. in technology, combining electronic
diary reports with collateral measures
such as
ambulatory heart rate; 2. in measurement, switching from measures based on
between-person differences to those based on within-person changes; and 3. in
research questions, using diaries to (a) explain why people differ in
variability rather than mean level, (b) study change processes during major events
and transitions, and (c) study interpersonal processes using dyadic and group
diary methods.
The recent growth in diary and
experience sampling research has increased research attention on how
people change over time in natural settings. Often however, the
measures in these studies were originally developed for studying
between-person differences, and their sensitivity to within-person
changes is usually unknown. Using a Generalizability Theory
framework, the authors illustrate a procedure for developing
reliable measures of change using a version of the Profile of Mood
States (POMS; McNair, Lorr, & Droppleman, 1992) shortened for
diary studies. Analyzing two data sets, one composed of 35 daily
reports from 68 persons experiencing a stressful examination and
another composed of daily reports from 164 persons over a typical
28-day period, we demonstrate that three-item measures of anxious
mood, depressed mood, anger, fatigue, and vigor have appropriate
reliability to detect within-person change processes.
Green, A.S., Rafaeli, E., Bolger, N., Shrout, P.E., & Reis, H.T.
(2006). Paper or plastic? Data equivalence in paper and electronic diaries.
Psychological Methods. [PDF]
Concern
has been raised about the lack of participant compliance in diary studies that
use paper and pencil as opposed to electronic formats. Three studies explored
the magnitude of compliance problems and their effects on data quality. Study 1
used random signals to elicit diary reports, and found close matches to
self-reported completion times, matches that could not plausibly have been
fabricated. Studies 2 and 3 examined psychometric and statistical equivalence
of data obtained using paper versus electronic formats. With minor exceptions,
both methods yielded data that were equivalent psychometrically and in patterns
of findings. These results serve to at
least partially mollify concern about the validity of paper diary methods.
Lutz, W., Rafaeli, E., Howard, K.I., & Martinovich, Z. (2002) Adaptive modeling of progress in outpatient psychotherapy. Psychotherapy Research, 12(4). [PDF]
All
professional services require adaptive decision making, that is, modifications
based on diagnostic configuration and an ongoing assessment of progress or
accomplishment of goals. In the delivery of clinical services, outcome
monitoring (i.e., repeated assessments of a patient’s response to treatment and
recurrent revisions of outcome expectations based on the observed treatment
response) can be used to support this sort of adaptive decision making. The
authors describe a model for determining the expected treatment response of a
patient based on presenting characteristics and information collected over the
course of treatment. They also discuss how this information could be used to
support clinical decisions regarding treatment selection and modification.
Rafaeli-Mor, E., Gotlib, I.H., & Revelle, W. (1999). The meaning and measurement of self-complexity. Personality and Individual Differences, 27, 341-356. [PDF]
The
self-complexity (SC) theory is a structural model of self-knowledge that
suggests individual differences in the complexity of knowledge about the self
are predictive of emotional stability and reactivity to stress. Various studies
have identified problems concerning the consistency, reliability, and validity
of the often used measure of SC, the dimensionality statistic (H; Scott, 1969). Addressing these issues, the present
study proposes 2 alternative measures of the components of SC and examines
psychometric properties of these measures. The results of this study indicate a
lack of a general factor underlying the dimensionality statistic. In addition,
they offer support for the benefit of distinguishing between 2 components of
self-complexity:
quantity
of self-aspects and overlap among them.
Rafaeli-Mor, E. & Steinberg, J. (2002). Self-complexity and well-being: A research synthesis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 6, 31-58. [PDF]
We
reviewed the extant literature examining Linville’s (1985, 1987)
self-complexity (SC) model. SC is a structural feature of people’s
self-knowledge. Linville (1987) proposed that SC serves as a cognitive buffer
against extreme affective reactions to life events. We report results of two
procedures: a classic meta-analysis and a more primitive vote-counting
procedure. Overall, SC was negatively, but weakly, related to
well-being,
a relationship qualified by strong heterogeneity among studies. We found little
support for SC as a stress buffer, but more support as a moderator of uplifting
events. Several methodological and substantive variables (e.g., the type of
well-being studied, the valence of SC, and characteristics of the samples and
designs used) were associated with effect magnitude. We discuss implications
for competing theories of self-structure and comment on the use of information
theory in studying the self.