Award Date

August 2017

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

First Committee Member

Russell Hurlburt

Second Committee Member

Christopher Heavey

Third Committee Member

Rachael Robnett

Fourth Committee Member

Douglas Unger

Number of Pages

194

Abstract

Self-report questionnaires that explore human experience sometimes produce substantially discrepant results from careful sampling-based methods such as Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES). One explanation is that questionnaires may not be inquiring about the same phenomena that sampling discovers. To investigate this, we conducted two studies. Study 1 (N =260) created the Nevada Inner Experience Questionnaire (NIEQ), designed to measure the frequency of the same five phenomena of inner experience that DES frequently finds (the “5FP”: inner speaking, inner seeing, unsymbolized thinking, feeling and sensory awareness). Study 1 explored the construct validity of the NIEQ, finding it to be reliable and psychometrically valid. Study 2 (N =16) investigated the NIEQ’s criterion validity by engaging participants from Study 1 to participate in DES, exploring the extent to which participants’ DES sampled experience frequencies matched their NIEQ frequency ratings. Correlations between DES and NIEQ frequencies were close to zero, despite the fact that both methods were designed to measure the frequency of the same 5FP. We conclude that there is reason to be cautious about the extent to which questionnaire self-reports provide accurate accounts of actual inner experience.

Keywords

Descriptive Experience Sampling; Inner Experience; Questionnaires

Disciplines

Psychology

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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Psychology Commons

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