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Flow and the Foundations of Positive Psychology pp 21–34Cite as

The Experience Sampling Method

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Abstract

The Experience Sampling Method (ESM) is a research procedure for studying what people do, feel, and think during their daily lives, It consists in asking individuals to provide systematic self-reports at random occasions during the waking hours of a normal week. Sets of these self-reports from a sample of individuals create an archival file of daily experience.

H. T. Reis (Ed.), New Directions for Methodology of Social and Behavioral Sciences (vol. 15, pp. 41–56). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. © 1983 Wiley imprint—Republished with permission.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Larry Chalip and Mark Freeman for comments on this chapter. Parts of the research discussed here were funded by the Spencer Foundation, by the George Barr Foundation, and by a Judith Offer grant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA

    Reed Larson

  2. Division of Behavioral & Organizational Science, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA, USA

    Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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  1. Reed Larson
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  2. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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Correspondence to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi .

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Larson, R., Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2014). The Experience Sampling Method. In: Flow and the Foundations of Positive Psychology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9088-8_2

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