Award Date

5-1-2022

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

First Committee Member

Russell Hurlburt

Second Committee Member

Noelle Lefforge

Third Committee Member

Murray Millary

Fourth Committee Member

Jared Lau

Number of Pages

390

Abstract

Descriptive experience sampling (DES) is a method of describing inner experience (i.e., directly apprehended thoughts, feelings, sensations, etc.). DES includes “iterative” sequences of random, natural-environment, beeper-driven sampling of inner experiences followed by an expositional interview that seeks to apprehend and describe those inner experiences in high-fidelity. DES investigators claim that these iterative sequences increase the participant’s DES skills. The present study tests that claim by investigating whether participants demonstrate higher skills in their very-last-sample interviews than they exhibited in their own very-first-sample interviews. The very-last-sample and very-first-sample interviews of six participants were quantitatively and qualitatively examined. We found that participants in very-first-sample interviews used frequent subjunctifiers that suggested that phenomena were not apprehended, whereas in their very-last- sample interviews they used subjunctifiers that suggested that they had apprehended phenomena adequately but their descriptions were falling short of describing those phenomena in high fidelity. Furthermore, very-last-sample interview turns were judged to be cleaving significantly more adequately to experience apprehended at-a-moment than were very-first-sample interview turns. These results are consistent with the view that DES skill increases across iterative sampling rounds. Implications for DES and other first-person methods are discussed.

Keywords

descriptive experience sampling; inner experience; introspection; iterative training; self-report; subjunctification

Disciplines

Psychology

File Format

pdf

File Size

2100 KB

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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