I’d like to improve the indicators I’ve been using. I struggle to get the right balance between quantitative (more analysable) and qualitative (more accurate). Any suggestions?
I am slowly setting up a self-experiment with lithium focusing on mood, so I’m interested in the same question. Seth Roberts suggested I rate my mood on just a 0-100 scale as opposed to the 1-5 I was using; I suggested using the Brief POMS as an apparently standard mood rating tool (and used in previous lithium studies) but I haven’t heard back.
Thanks. My problem seems to be along the lines of “well, I’m happy about x but simultaneously anxious about y and kind of stressed because I only just met my deadline for blah..., so what does that aggregate to?”
I’m not sure how increasing the scale would help with that, but I followed the link to the POMs stuff on your website, I reckon something similar could be a good solution, though probably with different moods.
Well, if each axis of happiness / anxiety / stress is equally important, then the happiness gets canceled out. And you’d wind up with a score indicating as much on the POMS.
This seems sensible to me. If the happiness wasn’t being canceled out by the other two, would you really be feeling ‘kind of stressed’? Wouldn’t you be feeling a kind of relief or smugness - ‘ha, beat the deadline again!’ - or feeling of accomplishment - ‘go me!’ - or something positive like that?
I am slowly setting up a self-experiment with lithium focusing on mood, so I’m interested in the same question. Seth Roberts suggested I rate my mood on just a 0-100 scale as opposed to the 1-5 I was using; I suggested using the Brief POMS as an apparently standard mood rating tool (and used in previous lithium studies) but I haven’t heard back.
Thanks. My problem seems to be along the lines of “well, I’m happy about x but simultaneously anxious about y and kind of stressed because I only just met my deadline for blah..., so what does that aggregate to?”
I’m not sure how increasing the scale would help with that, but I followed the link to the POMs stuff on your website, I reckon something similar could be a good solution, though probably with different moods.
Well, if each axis of happiness / anxiety / stress is equally important, then the happiness gets canceled out. And you’d wind up with a score indicating as much on the POMS.
This seems sensible to me. If the happiness wasn’t being canceled out by the other two, would you really be feeling ‘kind of stressed’? Wouldn’t you be feeling a kind of relief or smugness - ‘ha, beat the deadline again!’ - or feeling of accomplishment - ‘go me!’ - or something positive like that?