How Are Personality States Associated with Smartphone Data?

Smartphones promise great potential for personality science to study people's everyday life behaviours. Even though personality psychologists have become increasingly interested in the study of personality states, associations between smartphone data and personality states have not yet been investigated. This study provides a first step towards understanding how smartphones may be used for behavioural assessment of personality states. We explored the relationships between Big Five personality states and data from smartphone sensors and usage logs. On the basis of the existing literature, we first compiled a set of behavioural and situational indicators, which are potentially related to personality states. We then applied them on an experience sampling data set containing 5748 personality state responses that are self-assessments of 30 minutes timeframes and corresponding smartphone data. We used machine learning analyses to investigate the predictability of personality states from the set of indicators. The results showed that only for extraversion, smartphone data (specifically, ambient noise level) were informative beyond what could be predicted based on time and day of the week alone. The results point to continuing challenges in realizing the potential of smartphone data for psychological research. © 2020 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology     

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The “Longing for Interpersonal Touch Picture Questionnaire”: Development of a new measurement for touch perception

Touch is a crucial factor of physiological and psychological health in humans. A lack of touch in contrast is associated with adverse implications on mental health. A new “Longing for Interpersonal Touch Picture Questionnaire (LITPQ)” was developed and tested for its concurrent, predictive, discriminant and face validity as well as its relation to psychological distress. Six different types of touch were depicted and touch frequency and touch wish concerning different interaction partners assessed. A sample of 110 participants aged 18–56 years completed the LITPQ as well as an existing touch deprivation questionnaire and a questionnaire on mental health. Frequency and wish for touch were higher for close interaction partners than for strangers. For 72.7% of the participants, their touch wish exceeded the reported touch frequency. The LITPQ correlated moderately with the existing questionnaire for touch deprivation and was independent of relationship status or gender but positively correlated with depressiveness, anxiety and somatization. Measuring longing for touch is a very complex task considering the many aspects of subjective touch perception and confounds in the method of self-report of touch. In our view, the LITPQ provides promising insights into this matter.     

Patientensuizid im psychiatrischen Fachkrankenhaus

Suicide prevention especially with psychiatric inpatients is traditionally a very important aspect of psychiatric treatment. During the 1970s and 1980s there was a noticeable increase in so-called hospital suicides in Germany, especially suicides of schizophrenic inpatients. The number of psychiatric inpatient suicides has currently decreased again and a shift to more depressive suicides has also been observed. Furthermore questions which are asked in court are presented and discussed.