In a number of psychological disciplines, experience sampling studies are used to investigate when and why individuals vary in their cognitions, feelings, or personality states, to name just a few examples. However, to validly answer such research questions, researchers have to use reliable and valid measures of such intraindividual or within-person variability. Following Baird, Lucas, and Donnellan (2017), the present study uses data from two experience sampling studies to investigate whether response style variability can be assessed in a reliable way, whether variability measures are related to such response styles, and whether it is important to control for response styles in later analyses. We found that individuals differ in their response style variability and that these differences can be reliably assessed. Furthermore, response styles were moderately related to personality indicators, affect, and self-esteem variability. They were not associated with any of the outcome measures, so that most results remained unchanged when controlling for these differences. Nevertheless, our results indicate that researchers should additionally assess response styles when studying phenomena involving intraindividual variability.

Background Many studies display promising results for interventions that are based on Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) in the treatment of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Methods: This meta-analysis assessed the effects of such treatments on developmental outcomes in children with ASD and on parental stress based on 11 studies with 632 participants. Results: Compared to treatment as usual, minimal or no treatment, comprehensive ABA-based interventions showed medium effects for intellectual functioning (standardized mean difference SMD = 0.51, 95% CI [0.09; 0.92]) and adaptive behavior (SMD = 0.37, 95% CI [0.03; 0.70]). Language abilities, symptom severity or parental stress did not improve beyond the improvement in control groups. Moderator analyses indicate that language abilities at intake could influence the effect sizes and the influence of treatment intensity might decrease with older age. Conclusions: Practical implications and limitations are discussed.

Although rapid changes in symptom severity, or sudden gains and losses, are well known in psychotherapeutic research, much about the underlying processes that lead to them is still unclear. The revised theory of sudden gains and the complexity theory of psychopathology offer explanations of why sudden gains and sudden losses occur and how they can be predicted. To test the implications of these two theories, we investigated sudden gains and losses in a daily diary study focusing on their frequency, stability, and association with certain statistical indicators. To this end, we examined the daily self-esteem and nervousness ratings of 98 young adults over 82 consecutive days. Generally supporting the theoretical frameworks above, our findings suggest that everyday sudden gains and losses seem to be a common but unstable phenomenon associated with increased within-person variance.