Fast or Slow? Individual and Symptom Differences in the Dynamic Speed of Psychopathological Symptoms
Abstract
Introduction: Recent research has increasingly adopted complex dynamical systems theory to understand psychopathology. A key proposition is that psychopathological symptoms may operate at different time scales, with different dynamic speeds shaping the evolution of the symptom system. This study examined the extent to which variability in symptom dynamic speed reflects symptom differences, person differences, and person-by-symptom interactions. Methods: We analyzed five intensive longitudinal experience sampling datasets comprising 265 participants and 33,059 retained observations. Dynamic speed was quantified for each person-symptom time series using lag-1 autocorrelation (AC) and mean period (MP) derived from Lomb–Scargle spectral analysis. Multilevel variance decomposition was used to partition variability into person, symptom, and person-by-symptom components. Results: Across the two dynamic speed indices, symptom variance was generally non-significant. Person variance and person-by-symptom interaction variance were significant in several datasets and generally exceeded symptom variance, although pairwise differences between variance components were not consistently significant. Conclusion: The findings provide limited evidence for consistent symptom differences in dynamic speed; person differences and person-by-symptom interactions may play a more prominent role. These results highlight the importance of idiographic approaches to understanding symptom dynamics and underscore the need for further research into the clinical implications of dynamic speed.
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BibTeX
@misc{zhang2026fast,
title = {{Fast or Slow? Individual and Symptom Differences in the Dynamic Speed of Psychopathological Symptoms}},
author = {Liying Zhang and Xinchun Wu and Luming Liu and Ying Li and Wenchao Wang and Hao Yuan and Yang Li and Jingmeng Cui},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/y9zdt_v2},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/y9zdt_v2/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Fast or Slow? Individual and Symptom Differences in the Dynamic Speed of Psychopathological Symptoms
AU - Liying Zhang
AU - Xinchun Wu
AU - Luming Liu
AU - Ying Li
AU - Wenchao Wang
AU - Hao Yuan
AU - Yang Li
AU - Jingmeng Cui
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/25
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/y9zdt_v2
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/y9zdt_v2/
AB - Introduction: Recent research has increasingly adopted complex dynamical systems theory to understand psychopathology. A key proposition is that psychopathological symptoms may operate at different time scales, with different dynamic speeds shaping the evolution of the symptom system. This study examined the extent to which variability in symptom dynamic speed reflects symptom differences, person differences, and person-by-symptom interactions. Methods: We analyzed five intensive longitudinal experience sampling datasets comprising 265 participants and 33,059 retained observations. Dynamic speed was quantified for each person-symptom time series using lag-1 autocorrelation (AC) and mean period (MP) derived from Lomb–Scargle spectral analysis. Multilevel variance decomposition was used to partition variability into person, symptom, and person-by-symptom components. Results: Across the two dynamic speed indices, symptom variance was generally non-significant. Person variance and person-by-symptom interaction variance were significant in several datasets and generally exceeded symptom variance, although pairwise differences between variance components were not consistently significant. Conclusion: The findings provide limited evidence for consistent symptom differences in dynamic speed; person differences and person-by-symptom interactions may play a more prominent role. These results highlight the importance of idiographic approaches to understanding symptom dynamics and underscore the need for further research into the clinical implications of dynamic speed.
ER -