Data Collection for Our First Mobile Phone Experience Sampling Study is Complete!

Thanks to the heroic efforts of a number of research assistants in the lab, we have completed data collection for our first large-N experience sampling study. Elevated levels of neuroticism and dispositional anxiety confer liability for the development of anxiety disorders as well as co-morbid depression and substance abuse. Here, we focused on a demographically-diverse sample of individuals selected to have a broad range of this anxious phenotype. Self-reported mood, behavior, activity, whereabouts, stress exposure, and social engagement were intensively sampled (10 surveys/day) for a week, promising an unprecedented glimpse into the daily experience of individuals at risk for developing anxiety-related psychiatric disorders. In particular, this study affords an opportunity to clarify the nature of social and behavioral inhibition “in the wild” and set the stage for linking “deep phenotype” measures to brain activity and connectivity, indexed using functional MRI.