The Time Sampling Diary (TSD) of Emotional Experience in Everyday Life Situations

Abstract

Abstract Following the flow of a person’s experiences and activities over a longer period of time in his or her daily life is not just difficult; it is virtually impossible. A person moving around all the time, pursuing simultaneously several goals, entering inaccessible private settings, protecting thoughts and feelings against unwanted detection by interaction partners or observers; all this makes observation and recording extremely cumbersome. For many research questions, retrospective diaries— reporting in the late evening on the events, thoughts, feelings, and actions of the preceding day—are not close enough to the process to be studied. People may not remember or may not find worthwhile reporting what they remember. Thus self-report time sampling of experience in situ is an alternative that gives access to any kind of situation, provides representative data, and keeps the effort for the participant and the researcher still at a tolerable level.