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Utah's Foremost Platform for Undergraduate Research Presentation
2021 Abstracts

Examining daily patterns of psychological inflexibility

Presenter: Janice Snow, Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services, Psychology
Authors: Janice Snow, Korena S. Klimczak, Marissa L. Donahue, Leila Capel, Mike E. Levin
Faculty Advisor: Micheal Levin, Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services, Psychology
Institution: Utah State University

Background: Psychological inflexibility acts as a core pathological process for a variety of psychological disorders (Hayes et al., 2006; Bluett et al., 2014). Psychological inflexibility is a pattern of responding to thoughts and feelings in a literal and rigid way. This leads to ineffective behaviors meant to control internal processes rather than behaviors directed by personal values and effective contingencies. Prior research focuses on trait-like measures of psychological inflexibility which lack context-sensitivity and fails to discriminate between psychological inflexibility subprocesses. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) research shows promise in addressing these gaps. EMA research involves completing brief assessments throughout the day to capture in the moment experiences. The current study seeks to extend EMA research on psychological inflexibility by examining the effects of its specific sub-processes on emotions and engagement in meaningful activities. Methods: Participants were USU students who owned an Android or iPhone. In a web survey, participants completed study measures (baseline and 1-week post-enrollment survey). Throughout enrollment, participants completed EMA assessments three times a day for one week on their mobile phones, responding to questions regarding current emotional experiences, stressors/positive events, success engaging in goal-directed activities, and psychological inflexibility processes. Results: Upon presentation, the authors plan to present the findings of preliminary analyses and hierarchical linear modeling to address the aforementioned study aims. We hypothesize that psychological inflexibility sub-processes, as well as striving for positive internal experiences in the moment, will individually contribute to predicting more negative and less positive emotions and lower engagement in meaningful activities in the moment.