The diversity of mind wandering : The role of individual differences and cognitive factors

Many individuals spend a substantial portion of their waking time thinking about topics unrelated to current activities and surroundings (mind wandering). This dissertation sought to contribute to our knowledge of why some people mind wander more than others. Mind wandering in cognitive tasks is more common in individuals with poor executive cognitive control (working memory updating, inhibiting task-inappropriate response, shifting between tasks), but these studies have paid little attention to the variety of contents of mind wandering and individual differences moderators. Individuals vary in how much they find their mind wandering enjoyable or helpful (a positive mind wandering style) or dysphoric and anguished (a negative style). Paper I tested whether positive or negative styles of mind wandering moderated the relation between executive control and mind wandering, which could help reconcile two cognitive hypotheses of mind wandering. The control-failure hypothesis suggests that mind wandering occurs because of disruptions in executive control, whereas the global availability hypothesis suggests that the availability of executive resources fosters mind wandering. The results indicated that the relation between working memory capacity and mind wandering depended on a negative mind wandering style: Those individuals with a high-negative mind wandering style exhibited a negative relation between working memory and mind wandering (consistent with the control-failure hypothesis), whereas the relation was positive in those with a low-negative style (consistent with the global availability hypothesis). Paper II evaluated affect and cognitive variables by relating mind wandering during a signal detection task to individual differences in negative affectivity (neuroticism) and self-regulatory abilities. Mind wandering was associated with neuroticism and low effortful control, but not with shifting ability. Regression analyses indicated that effortful control predicted lower neutral mind wandering whereas neuroticism predicted negative mind wandering. The subsequent two papers extended this research by examining mind wandering, affect, and control in selected populations. A trait relevant to attentional control and negative affect is dissociation, which includes amnesia and experiential disconnectedness from self/others (detachment). Paper III evaluated everyday mentation in people scoring high or low in dissociation and in hypnotic suggestibility (hypnotizability). Mind wandering episodes were characterized by a reduced sense of control/awareness of mentations, especially in those scoring high on both hypnotizability and dissociation. Paper IV applied attachment theory to study everyday mentations in adults with childhood exposures to traumatizing events. A negative mind wandering style and everyday experiences of dissociation, negative affect, and low control/awareness were associated with a self-report, but not a discourse, measure of unresolved/disorganized attachment. The latter construct did not predict overall amount of mind wandering. The results of this dissertation help integrate cognitive hypotheses of mind wandering within broader cognitive, affective, and developmental frameworks. I suggest that mind wandering consists of different subtypes that operate through different cognitive processes in which one is characterized by neutral or negative affect, poor working memory monitoring, and low effortful control, and appears more often in high dissociative/ high hypnotizable individuals, whereas another subtype is characterized by positive affect but is less clear in its relation to executive functioning.