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Individual differences in dimensions of mind wandering: the mediating role of emotional valence and intentionality

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Abstract

Individual differences in executive control ability reliably show that those with greater executive control report fewer instances of mind wandering during moderately demanding tasks. However, these findings have been limited in that they often treated mind wandering as a variable that collapsed across a variety of thought categories or dimensions. We suggest that two dimensions of mind wandering, intentionality and emotional valence, may be differential related to individual difference in executive control ability. The present study examined this using multiple measures of working memory capacity and attentional control while measuring emotional valence and intentionality of mind wandering during a single sustained attention task. Non-cognitive predictors of mind wandering were also measured. Overall, the results suggest that both working memory capacity and attention control are significant predictors of mind wandering propensity, replicating previous findings. However, the dimensions of emotional valence and intentionality suggested that this finding was not consistent across all types of thought reports. The current findings provide support for the view that it is critical to consider these two dimensions, among other important dimensions, of mind wandering to have a more complete understanding of individual differences in mind wandering.

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  1. The current study included multiple thought probe responses related to different categories of negative task-unrelated thoughts due to a subsequent writing manipulation designed to explore the impact of a variety of negative moods. For the purpose of the current paper, these negatively valenced TUT response options are collapsed since this data was collected before any mood manipulation.

  2. Due to skewness and kurtosis for positive TUT rates, this variable was transformed to correct for skewness and kurtosis. Following the transformation, all analyses were conducted with the transformed variable. No differences were observed between analyses with the raw and the transformed data. As a result, analysis with the raw data are reported for ease of interpretation.

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  1. College of Psychology, Nova Southeastern University, 3301 College Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, FL, 33314, USA

    Jonathan B. Banks

  2. University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, USA

    Matthew S. Welhaf

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Banks, J.B., Welhaf, M.S. Individual differences in dimensions of mind wandering: the mediating role of emotional valence and intentionality. Psychological Research 86, 1495–1517 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-021-01579-2

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