title: Assessing Temporal Emotion Dynamics Using Networks.
abstract: Multivariate psychological processes have recently been studied, visualized, and analyzed as networks. In this network approach, psychological constructs are represented as complex systems of interacting components. In addition to insightful visualization of dynamics, a network perspective leads to a new way of thinking about the nature of psychological phenomena by offering new tools for studying dynamical processes in psychology. In this article, we explain the rationale of the network approach, the associated methods and visualization, and illustrate it using an empirical example focusing on the relation between the daily fluctuations of emotions and neuroticism. The results suggest that individuals with high levels of neuroticism had a denser emotion network compared with their less neurotic peers. This effect is especially pronounced for the negative emotion network, which is in line with previous studies that found a denser network in depressed subjects than in healthy subjects. In sum, we show how the network approach may offer new tools for studying dynamical processes in psychology.
authors.affiliation: 1 KU Leuven-University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Laura F
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Bringmann
authors.affiliation: 1 KU Leuven-University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Madeline L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Pe
authors.affiliation: 1 KU Leuven-University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Nathalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Vissers
authors.affiliation: 1 KU Leuven-University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ceulemans
authors.affiliation: 2 University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Denny
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Borsboom
authors.affiliation: 1 KU Leuven-University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Wolf
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Vanpaemel
authors.affiliation: 1 KU Leuven-University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Francis
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Tuerlinckx
authors.affiliation: 1 KU Leuven-University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kuppens
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D000075384:Neuroticism
keywords: emotion dynamics; intensive longitudinal data; multilevel vector autoregressive model; networks