Our Daily Experiences Study (ODESy)
What can we learn about personality from the way people describe their own daily lives?
This project expands how personality is studied by looking beyond standard questionnaires to examine what can be learned from people’s own open-ended descriptions of their thoughts, moods, behaviors, and social interactions as they go about daily life. Using new computational tools, including AI-assisted methods running within secure University of Michigan systems, researchers can analyze these narrative descriptions in ways that have historically been difficult.
Why is this research important?
The vast majority of personality assessments rely on structured questionnaires, which can miss the richness and nuance of how people actually narrate their own experiences. By collecting brief interviews and voice recordings alongside traditional self-report measures, this study evaluates whether — and what kind of — additional information about personality and related psychological processes can be found in the stories people tell about their everyday lives. The findings could open new avenues for how personality and daily social experience are measured and understood.
Study Design and Compensation
Participants complete a baseline Zoom interview and training session (about 2 hours) followed by a set of standard personality and demographic questionnaires (about 30 minutes). Over the following 7 days, participants use a smartphone app to complete brief nightly diary surveys and short voice recordings about their daily social interactions. Participants can be compensated up to $165 for their time.