Elsevier

Journal of Affective Disorders

Volume 315, 15 October 2022, Pages 139-147
Journal of Affective Disorders

Temporal and contemporaneous network structures of affect and physical activity in emotional disorders

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2022.07.061Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Positive and negative affect differentially contribute to the overall structure of affect depending on the timeframe.

  • Positive affect exhibits greater levels of network connectivity during contemporaneous time windows.

  • Negative affect is more predictive of future affect states.

  • No evidence was found for physical activity being related to affective states.

Abstract

Background

High negative affect, low positive affect, and limited physical activity figure prominently in psychopathology, but little is known about the interrelatedness of affect and physical activity in emotional disorders.

Methods

We combined ecological momentary assessment data with a network approach to examine the dynamic relations among positive affect, negative affect, and smartphone-based estimates of physical activity in 34 participants with anxiety and depressive disorders over a 2-week period.

Results

In the contemporaneous networks, the positive affect nodes exhibited greater overall strength centrality than negative affect nodes. The temporal networks indicated that the negative affect node ‘sadness’ exhibited the greatest out-strength centrality. Furthermore, physical activity was unconnected to the affect nodes in either the temporal or contemporaneous networks.

Conclusions

Whereas positive affect plays a greater role in the contemporaneous experience of emotions, negative affect contributes more so to future affective states.

Section snippets

Inclusion and exclusion characteristics

Participants were included in the study if they exhibited the following characteristics: 1) were at least 18 years old, 2) satisfied criteria for high negative affect (i.e., a score ≥ 22 on the negative affect subscale of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule; PANAS), 3) were stable on current psychotropic medication with the same dose and same regimen for a minimum of 6 weeks and were willing to maintain stable dose, OR off concurrent medication for at least 2 weeks prior to first study

Time-series diagnostics

For all nodes, data was screened for multicollinearity to assess potential node redundancy. None of the contemporaneous bi-variate correlations exceeded standard cut-offs thresholds for multicollinearity (r ≥ 0.80; Berry and Feldman, 1985). Also, all nodes were screened for potential time trends. Individual multilevel models were estimated such that each variable was regressed on a time variable. None of the models exhibited a statistically significant relationship between the respective node

Discussion

To elucidate the time-series characteristics of positive affect, negative affect, and physical activity, we used a time-series network approach in a sample of treatment-seeking individuals with high trait negative affect. The primary aims were to investigate the temporal and contemporaneous network structure of positive affect, negative affect, and physical activity. In the temporal network, the node representing sadness evidenced the greatest out-strength, both predicting itself and inversely

Funding

This study received funding from the APA Dissertation Research Award and was funded in part by the Alexander von Humboldt foundation.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Joshua E. Curtiss: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Megan Pinaire: Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Daniel Fulford: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Richard J. McNally: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Stefan G. Hofmann: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing –

Declaration of competing interest

S.G.H. receives financial support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, NIH/NCCIH (R01AT007257), NIH/NIMH (R01MH099021, U01MH108168), and the James S. McDonnell Foundation 21st Century Science Initiative in Understanding Human Cognition — Special Initiative. He receives compensation for his work as editor from SpringerNature and the Association for Psychological Science, and as an advisor from the Palo Alto Health Sciences, Otsuka Pharmaceuticals, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and for his work as

References (45)

  • C. Beard et al.

    Network analysis of depression and anxiety symptom relationships in a psychiatric sample

    Psychol. Med.

    (2016)
  • A.T. Beck et al.

    Comparison of Beck. depression inventories-IA and-II in psychiatric outpatients

    J. Pers. Assess.

    (1996)
  • E.E. Bernstein et al.

    Exercise and emotion dynamics: an experience sampling study

    Emotion

    (2019)
  • W.D. Berry et al.

    Multiple Regression in Practice

    (1985)
  • D. Borsboom et al.

    Network analysis: an integrative approach to the structure of psychopathology

    Annu. Rev. Clin. Psychol.

    (2013)
  • F.M. Bos et al.

    Can we jump from cross-sectional to dynamic interpretations of networks implications for the network perspective in psychiatry

    Psychother. Psychosom.

    (2017)
  • L.F. Bringmann et al.

    Revealing the dynamic network structure of the Beck DepressionInventory-II

    Psychol. Med.

    (2015)
  • T.A. Brown et al.

    A proposal for a dimensional classification system based on the shared features of the DSM-IV anxiety and mood disorders: implications for assessment and treatment

    Psychol. Assess.

    (2009)
  • T.A. Brown et al.

    Anxiety and Related Disorders Interview Schedule for DSM-5 Lifetime Version (ADIS-5L)

    (2014)
  • J.T. Cacioppo et al.

    The affect system has parallel and integrative processing components: form follows function

    J. Pers. Soc. Psychol.

    (1999)
  • L.A. Clark et al.

    Mood and the mundane: relations between daily life events and self-reported mood

    J. Pers. Soc. Psychol.

    (1988)
  • J.R. Crawford et al.

    The positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS): construct validity, measurement properties and normative data in alarge non-clinical sample

    Br. J. Clin. Psychol.

    (2004)
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text