Stone Arthur A, Wen Cheng K Fred, Schneider Stefan, Junghaenel Doerte U
Center for Self-Report Science and Center for Economic and Social Research, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
J Med Internet Res. 2020 Feb 21;22(2):e16105. doi: 10.2196/16105.
Daily diaries are extensively used for examining participants' daily experience in behavioral and medical science. However, little attention is paid to whether participants recall their experiences within the time frames prescribed by the task.
This study aimed to describe survey respondents' self-reported recall time frames and to evaluate the impact of different daily diary items on respondents' reported affective states.
In this study, 577 participants completed a mood survey with one of the following 4 time frame instructions: (1) today, (2) since waking up today, (3) during the last 24 hours, or (4) in the last day. They were also asked to indicate the periods they considered when answering these items and to recall the instructional phrases associated with the items.
Almost all participants in the today (141/146, 96.6%) and since waking up today (136/145, 93.8%) conditions reported using periods consistent with our expectations, whereas a lower proportion was observed in the during the last 24 hours (100/145, 69.0%) condition. A diverse range of responses was observed in the in the last day condition. Furthermore, the instructions influenced the levels of some self-reported affects, although exploratory analyses were not able to identify the mechanism underlying this finding.
Overall, these results indicate that today and since waking up today are the most effective instructional phrases for inquiring about daily experience and that investigators should use caution when using the other 2 instructional phrases.
日常日记被广泛用于研究行为科学和医学领域参与者的日常经历。然而，对于参与者是否能在任务规定的时间范围内回忆起他们的经历，却很少有人关注。
本研究旨在描述调查对象自我报告的回忆时间范围，并评估不同的日常日记条目对调查对象报告的情感状态的影响。
在本研究中，577名参与者完成了一项情绪调查，调查给出了以下4种时间范围指示中的一种：（1）今天；（2）从今天醒来开始；（3）在过去24小时内；（4）在过去一天内。他们还被要求指出在回答这些条目时所考虑的时间段，并回忆与这些条目相关的指示性短语。
在“今天”（141/146，96.6%）和“从今天醒来开始”（136/145，93.8%）这两种情况下，几乎所有参与者报告使用的时间段都符合我们的预期，而在“在过去24小时内”（100/145，69.0%）这种情况下，观察到的比例较低。在“在过去一天内”这种情况下观察到了各种各样的回答。此外，这些指示影响了一些自我报告情感的水平，尽管探索性分析未能确定这一发现背后的机制。
总体而言，这些结果表明，“今天”和“从今天醒来开始”是询问日常经历最有效的指示性短语，研究人员在使用其他两种指示性短语时应谨慎。
