The association between self-reported emotional arousal and electrodermal activity of individuals in daily life. : A seven-day longitudinal Experience Sampling Study based on EDA components and both Momentary and Retrospective Self-reports.

Objective: Exploring the association between individuals' emotional intensity and physiological data in the form of EDA in real life is the aim of this paper. The study explored inter- and intra-individual associations between physiological- and psychological-emotional arousal in real life. Design: Quantitative longitudinal study with experience sampling method (ESM) with both between and within-subject designs. Method: Electrodermal Activity measured physiological arousal among 35 students. Emotional arousal in the form of momentary and retrospective self-reports was collected. For analyses, both within-subject and between-subject analyses were conducted, and inter-individual and intra-individual correlations were computed. Results: The data showed a wide range of intra-individual correlations between sympathetic and emotional arousal. On an inter-individual level, only very weak, mostly non-significant correlations were found. Besides, no significant difference between momentary and retrospective measurements could be detected. Conclusion: The association of emotional arousal found in prior laboratory studies was not found in this study. By conducting a real-life study, many variables that could be controlled within prior laboratory studies may have influenced our data. The data suggest that presumably, other factors, both at the group- and the individual level, play a much more significant role in real-life environments than prior findings suggested.