A review and preview of developments in the measurement of sociability

Abstract

Review of sociability measurements Boswell et al.

Morphine exposure during adolescence induces enduring social changes dependent on adolescent stage of exposure, sex, and social test.

“…Sociability is the tendency of individuals to associate with other individuals. This behavioral construct excludes behaviors that are primarily influenced by reproductive- and parental-related behaviors (Boswell et al, 2020; Caldwell, 2012; Gartland et al, 2022). Sociability can be further broken down into the identification, classification, integration, and response to social cues (López-Tobón et al, 2020) and is among the most complex sets of behavioral features controlled by the central nervous system (Yizhar & Levy, 2021).…”

Social-Ecological Measurement of Daily Life: How Relationally Focused Ambulatory Assessment Can Advance Clinical Intervention Science

“…Until recently, the researcher's toolbox for examining the unfolding of these processes during actual daily life has been critically limited. Researchers have largely had to rely on subjective measures, which have a number of recognized drawbacks (Boswell et al, 2020) By providing novel and objective data about how people are interacting with their social and ecological worlds, these methods make it possible to better understand the multi-faceted complexities of enacted clinical change, which has been a sustained but elusive priority for the field (Nielsen et al, 2018). Observational ambulatory assessment methods can provide insights The daily behaviors and social interaction variables can be assessed using audio recording technologies such as the EAR (for assessments of activities, environments, conversational tones and topics, family dynamics), mobile picture acquisition (for assessments of activities and objects in the physical environment), or social proximity sensors (for assessments of time spent proximal to others).…”

“…Until recently, the researcher's toolbox for examining the unfolding of these processes during actual daily life has been critically limited. Researchers have largely had to rely on subjective measures, which have a number of recognized drawbacks (Boswell et al, 2020) including recall biases, hindsight biases, social desirability effects, demand characteristics, and distortion through schemas of the self. Our observations of our own social-ecological processes are circumscribed by the lens of our psychological landscape; in some sense, as the writer Jim Harrison put it, "the days are stacked against what we think we are" (Harrison, 2012).…”

“…EMA has led to important advances in the clinical literature in this regard; for example, by making it possible to measure momentary impulsivity and its role in alcohol use behaviors in daily life . However, as others have pointed out, SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL MEASUREMENT AND CLINICAL SCIENCE 10 subjective assessments have several limitations in the information they can provide about daily behaviors and interactions (Boswell et al, 2020;Haeffel & Howard, 2010;Mehl & Conner, 2011;Wrzus & Mehl, 2015).…”

Looking to the Middle of the Qualitative-Quantitative Spectrum for Integrated Mixed Methods

“…The nature of video-recording and collaboratively viewing interpersonal interactions means that participants can highlight how their thoughts changed over time as a response to previous discussion or behavior, allowing for detailed temporal research. Likewise, turn-taking in conversations has been used to study group-level social interactions (Boswell et al, 2020). Interaction analysis is well-suited for turn-taking research, as observers can measure speaking length and conversational patterns in turn-taking throughout the course of a meeting.…”