Leslie H. Brown

When the Need to Belong Goes Wrong The Expression of Social Anhedonia and Social Anxiety in Daily Life

People possess an innate need to belong that drives social interactions. Aberrations in the need to belong, such as social anhedonia and social anxiety, provide a point of entry for examining this need. The current study used experience-sampling methodology to explore deviations in the need to belong in the daily lives of 245 undergraduates. Eight times daily for a week, personal digital assistants signaled subjects to complete questionnaires regarding affect, thoughts, and behaviors. As predicted, higher levels of social anhedonia were associated with increased time alone, greater preference for solitude, and lower positive affect. Higher social anxiety, in contrast, was associated with higher negative affect and was not associated with increased time alone. Furthermore, greater social anxiety was associated with greater self-consciousness and preference to be alone while interacting with unfamiliar people. Thus, deviations in the need to belong affect social functioning differently depending on whether this need is absent or thwarted.

The Expression of Adult ADHD Symptoms in Daily Life: An Application of Experience Sampling Methodology

Objective: To use experience sampling method (ESM) to examine the impact of inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive ADHD symptoms on emotional well-being, activities and distress, cognitive impairment, and social functioning assessed in the daily lives of young adults. The impact of subjective appraisals on their experiences is also examined. Method: Participants (n = 206) complete up to 56 in-the-moment assessments of mood and current activities using Personal Digital Assistants for 1 week. Results: Multilevel modeling techniques reveal that ADHD inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms differentially relate to daily experiences. Higher inattentive symptoms are associated with indices of general distress, including less positive and more negative mood as well as more concentration problems. Higher hyperactive-impulsive symptoms are associated with reduced sensitivity to contextual factors in perceptions of situations. Conclusion: These findings demonstrate predictive validity for adult self-report of ADHD symptoms in a general population sample and suggest future research directions using ESM. (J. of Att. Dis. 2008; 11(6) 652-663)

The expression of bipolar spectrum psychopathology in daily life

BACKGROUND Bipolar psychopathology has traditionally been defined by categorical diagnoses. However, these disorders may simply reflect the extremes of a broader spectrum of clinical and subclinical bipolar psychopathology. METHOD The present study examined the validity of the Hypomanic Personality Scale (HPS) as a measure of bipolar spectrum psychopathology in 305 young adults using experience sampling methodology. The participants completed the HPS and were signaled randomly eight times daily for seven days to complete brief questionnaires on their current experiences. RESULTS High HPS scores were associated with elevated energetic-enthusiasm, irritability, dysphoria, flight of ideas, mild grandiose beliefs, and risky behavior, as well as increased variability in affect in daily life. High HPS scores were also associated with greater reactivity in negative affect and behavior in response to viewing themselves as unsuccessful in their activities. LIMITATIONS It is not clear to what extent the participants had diagnosable bipolar disorders. CONCLUSIONS The findings support a broader spectrum of bipolar psychopathology and the validity of the HPS as a measure of this construct.

Looking for bipolar spectrum psychopathology: identification and expression in daily life

OBJECTIVES Current clinical and epidemiological research provides support for a continuum of bipolar psychopathology: a bipolar spectrum that ranges from subclinical manifestations to full-blown bipolar disorders. Examining subthreshold bipolar symptoms may identify individuals at risk for clinical disorders, promote early interventions and monitoring, and increase the likelihood of appropriate treatment. The present studies examined the construct validity of bipolar spectrum psychopathology using the Hypomanic Personality Scale. METHODS Study 1 used interview and questionnaire measures of bipolar spectrum psychopathology in a sample of 145 nonclinically ascertained young adults. Study 2 assessed the expression of the bipolar spectrum in daily life using experience sampling methodology in the same sample. RESULTS In study 1, Hypomanic Personality Scale scores were positively associated with clinical bipolar disorders, bipolar spectrum disorders, the presence of hypomania or hyperthymia, depressive symptoms, poor psychosocial functioning, cyclothymia, irritability, and symptoms of borderline personality disorder. In study 2, bipolar spectrum psychopathology was associated with negative affect, thought disturbance, risky behavior, and measures of grandiosity. These findings remained independent of clinical bipolar disorders. CONCLUSIONS In the present studies, bipolar-like disruptions in cognition, affect, and behavior were not limited to clinical diagnoses or mood episodes, providing further validation of the bipolar spectrum construct. The bipolar spectrum model appears to provide a conceptually richer basis for understanding and ultimately treating bipolar psychopathology than current diagnostic formulations.

The expression of affective temperaments in daily life

The present study is examined the expression of affective temperaments in daily life using experience sampling methodology (ESM). 138 participants completed the TEMPS-A and were then signaled eight times daily for one week to complete questionnaires that assessed affect, cognition, behavior, sense of self, and social interaction. As expected, cyclothymic/irritable temperament was positively associated with negative affect, risky behavior, and restlessness, and was negatively associated with positive affect and preference to be with others in daily life. In contrast, hyperthymic temperament was associated with positive affect, fullness of thought, doing many and exciting things, grandiosity, and preference to be with others in daily life. Cross-level interactions indicated that cyclothymic/irritable temperament was associated with elevated stress reactivity in daily life. This was the first study to examine affective temperaments in daily life. The findings offer further validation of the TEMPS-A, as well as the maladaptive nature of the cyclothymic/irritable temperament.

P03-26 - Paranoia, schizotypy, and social anxiety: factor structure and experience in daily life

Objectives Paranoia is considered a key characteristic of schizotypy and schizophrenia, although it also shares phenomenological features with social anxiety (e.g., social fear and discomfort). Our first study examined the relation of paranoia with positive and negative schizotypy and with social anxiety. The second study examined the experience of paranoia and social anxiety in daily life using experience sampling methodology (ESM). Methods Study 2: Participants were 862 university students who completed the Perceptual Aberration, Magical Ideation, Physical Anhedonia, and Social Anhedonia Scales, the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire, the Paranoia Checklist, the MMPI-2 Persecutory Ideas subscale, and the Social Phobia Scale. Study 1: A subset of 240 participants from study 1 carried palm pilots for 7 days that signaled them randomly 8 times daily to complete brief questionnaires inquiring about their cognitions, affect, activities, and social functioning at the time of the signal. Results A series of confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the best fitting model was a four-factor model with positive and negative schizotypy, paranoia, and social anxiety. As hypothesized, the paranoia factor was most strongly associated with positive schizotypy. While some measures of paranoia correlated with negative schizotypy, measures of core features of paranoid ideation were only minimally associated with negative schizotypy. Social anxiety comprised a separate factor outside of schizotypy, but was moderately associated with positive schizotypy and paranoia. Conclusions ESM findings indicated that paranoia and social anxiety are differentially experienced in daily life. The results are consistent with a multidimensional model of schizotypy/schizophrenia.