Category: Research Methods and Statistics
Samantha Hellberg, M.A.
Graduate student
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Donald Robinaugh, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Northeastern University
Boston, Massachusetts
Shirley Wang, M.A.
PhD Candidate
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Samantha Hellberg, M.A.
Graduate student
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Julia Levitan, PhD
Washington University in St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
Jiyoung Song, PhD
PhD Student
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Aidan Wright, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Decades of research have continued to emphasize that psychological phenomena are highly heterogenous. Individuals vary widely in their experience of psychological distress, clinical presentations, and responsiveness to science-based intervention components. To address persisting gaps in our understanding of mechanisms of psychological risk and resilience, and which treatments work for whom, recent years have seen increased emphasis on person-centered, process-based, and ecological research designs. The widespread availability of digital technologies, including smartphones, wearable biosensors, and passive sensing applications has expanded the potential opportunities for researchers to capture psychological phenomena, and their mechanisms, across multiple levels of analysis (i.e., subjective experience, behavior, biophysiological, social context) and time scales (i.e., minutes, days, weeks). While these methods have the potential to significantly augment the complexity of our theoretical and empirical models of mental health outcomes, and the efficacy of our prevention and intervention efforts, their successful implementation requires a myriad of methodological considerations. This symposium thus brings together studies drawing from state-of-the-art methods in clinical science, and person-centered, ecologically valid, or multi-modal (i.e., biopsychosocial) research design elements. We bring together work across various settings and populations. Presentations focus on the methodological and theoretical considerations necessary to optimize idiographic and ambulatory designs in clinical science. Presenters will highlight cutting-edge applications of novel methods, as well as current limitations and challenges in this line of research.
Our first presenter will discuss the formalization of theory with computational methods with an applied example of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. The second presenter will address on measurement challenges in intensive idiographic assessment, demonstrating the critical influence of pre-processing (e.g., theory- vs data-driven factor reduction) on substantiative outcomes in a person-centered study of panic disorder. The third presenter will discuss a dyadic ecological study on social anxiety, demonstrating how interpersonal processes can be modeled and used to augment idiographic research. The fourth presenter will then present findings on how contextual and interpersonal processes (e.g., discrimination) influence daily affective outcomes for individuals. Finally, results from a large investigation of the transdiagnostic links between daily stress and negative affectivity will be presented. Findings demonstrated pronounced heterogeneity in stress-affective processes, including a salient role of interpersonal stress and a link between internalizing psychopathology and stress reactivity. Our expert discussant will highlight methodological advances and limitations, and present on future directions for enhancing the design of person-centered, context-aware, and complex systems research in service of improving psychological science, and in turn, our understanding and treatment of mental health phenomena.
Presenter: Shirley B. Wang, M.A. – Harvard University
Co-author: Alexander Millner, Ph.D. – Harvard University
Co-author: Donald Robinaugh, Ph.D. – Northeastern University
Co-author: Rebecca G Fortgang, Ph.D. – Harvard University
Co-author: Matthew Nock, Ph.D. – Harvard University
Presenter: Samantha N. Hellberg, M.A. – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Co-author: Jonathan Abramowitz, Ph.D. – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Co-author: Olivia M. Losiewicz, M.A. – University of California, Los Angeles
Co-author: Kathleen Gates, PhD – UNC Chapel hill
Co-author: Amanda Baker, PhD – massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School
Presenter: Julia M. Levitan, PhD – Washington University in St. Louis
Co-author: Thomas L Rodebaugh, Ph.D. – Department Of Psychological And Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis
Presenter: Jiyoung Song, PhD – University of California, Berkeley
Co-author: Aaron J. Fisher, Ph.D. – University of California, Berkeley
Presenter: Aidan Wright, Ph.D. – University of Pittsburgh
Co-author: Colin Vize, PhD – University of Pittsburgh
Co-author: Aleksandra Kaurin, PhD – Private Universität Witten/Herdecke gGmbH