Abstract
The Experience Sampling Method (ESM) is a novel assessment strategy that allows random sampling of thoughts, affects, and behaviors. In ESM studies subjects wear beepers that signal at randomly generated, preprogrammed times at which subjects fill out a questionnaire containing items related to current activity, location, thought content, mood states, etc. The ESM was used to examine the relationship between mood states and thought content in a hospitalized sex offender. The patient exhibited a very high frequency of thoughts with sexual content, as well as thoughts indicative of anger against women, personal inadequacy, and distress. He appeared to be a poor judge of his state of optimal well-being. Whereas he considered support from others to be related to optimal well-being, it was actually sexual thoughts about a woman that were associated with his optimal well-being. The present case study illustrates the value of the ESM in the study of complex thought—affect—behavior relationships.
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Hillbrand, M., Waite, B.M. The everyday experience of an institutionalized sex offender: An idiographic application of the experience sampling method. Arch Sex Behav 23, 453–463 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01541409
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01541409