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 withinperson 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.Keywords diary studies; daily mood; within; person change; reliability; Generalizability Theory Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to James A. Cranford, Addiction Research Center and Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, 2025 Traverwood Drive, Suite A, Ann Arbor, MI 48105-2194; e-mail: jcranfor@med.umich.edu; Patrick E. Shrout, 6 Washington Place, Mail Room 416b, Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, 10003; e-mail: pat.shrout@nyu.edu; or Niall Bolger, 406 Schermerhorn Hall, 1190 Amsterdam Avenue, Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027; e-mail: nb2229@columbia.edu. James A. Cranford, Addiction Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan; Patrick E. Shrout and Masumi Iida, Department of Psychology, New York University; Eshkol Rafaeli, Psychology Department, Barnard College, Columbia University; Tiffany Yip, Department of Psychology, Fordham University; Niall Bolger, Department of Psychology, Columbia University. 2 In principle, it is possible to estimate the between-person reliability coefficient for mood by averaging a randomly selected set of days (R KR ). Because this is not a design that has obvious advantages, the generalizability coefficient is not presented here, but it is R KR available from the authors on request. NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptPers Soc Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2008 June 6. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptDaily diary designs are increasingly recommended for studying dynamic psychological processes such as emotional states, self-regulation, and appraisals of social situations (Bolger, Davis, & Rafaeli, 2003;. They have the potential to provide high-resolution information about evolving psychological processes, and they minimize retrospection artifacts and biases. Yet, they are not without their own methodological difficulties . Diary studies impose substantial demands on participants, and the burden imposed by protocols that require frequent self-reports may lead to biases in samples of participa...

Although social support is thought to boost feelings of closeness in dyadic relationships, recent findings have suggested that support receipt can increase distress in recipients. The authors investigated these apparently contrary findings in a large daily diary study of couples over 31 days leading up to a major stressor. Results confirm that daily support receipt was associated with greater feelings of closeness and greater negative mood. These average effects, however, masked substantial heterogeneity. In particular, those recipients showing greater benefits on closeness tended to show lesser cost on negative mood, and vice versa. Self-esteem was examined as a possible moderator of support effects, but its role was evident in only a subset of recipients. These results imply that models of dyadic support processes must accord a central role to betweenindividual heterogeneity.

Receiving support in committed relationships has frequently been associated with negative psychological outcomes in the recipient, such as increased distress. The authors hypothesized that these negative effects could be offset by support recipients' reciprocation of support, that is, by creating a sense of supportive equity. To investigate this hypothesis, the authors obtained daily reports of mood and of received and given emotional support from both partners in 85 couples throughout a 4-week period. Reciprocity in support transactions was associated with higher levels of positive mood and lower levels of negative mood. In line with previous research, receiving support without reciprocation was associated with increases in negative mood. Giving support, regardless of receipt, was associated with a decrease in negative mood.

Initial Elevation of Reports 2 SignificancePeople's reports of their own thoughts, feelings and behaviors are essential assessment tools in biomedical and social science. They be used to take a snapshot of how people are doing and to track change and the effects of interventions. When subjective states have been studied over time, researchers have often observed an unpredicted and puzzling decrease with repeated assessments. Our results across multiple outcomes in four field experiments suggest that this pattern is due to an initial elevation bias. This effect is larger for reports of internal states rather than behaviors and for negative mental states and physical symptoms than for positive states. This initial elevation bias needs to be considered in all types of research using subjective reports. AbstractPeople's reports of their thoughts, feelings and behaviors are used in many fields of biomedical and social science. When these states have been studied over time, researchers have often observed an unpredicted and puzzling decrease with repeated assessment. When noted, this pattern has been called an "attenuation effect", suggesting that the effect is due to bias in later reports. However, the pattern could also be consistent with an initial elevation bias. We present the first systematic, experimental bias, rather than a later decline. This bias is larger for reports of internal states than behaviors, and for negative mental states and physical symptoms than positive states.

Our findings offer insight into partners' day-to-day disease-related interactions and identify those that are likely to be beneficial versus detrimental for patients' physical and psychological health.