title: Mind-wandering and negative mood: does one thing really lead to another?
abstract: Mind-wandering is closely connected with negative mood. Whether negative mood is a cause or consequence of mind-wandering remains an important, unresolved, issue. We sought to clarify the direction of this relationship by measuring mood before and after mind-wandering. We also measured the affective content, time-orientation and relevance of mind-wandering to current concerns to explore whether the link between mind-wandering and negative mood might be explained by these characteristics. A novel experience-sampling technique with smartphone application prompted participants to answer questions about mind-wandering and mood across 7 days. While sadness tended to precede mind-wandering, mind-wandering itself was not associated with later mood and only predicted feeling worse if its content was negative. We also found prior sadness predicted retrospective mind-wandering, and prior negative mood predicted mind-wandering to current concerns. Our findings provide new insight into how mood and mind-wandering relate but suggest mind-wandering is not inherently detrimental to well-being.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The University of Sheffield, UK. Electronic address: g.poerio@sheffield.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Giulia L
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Poerio
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Totterdell
authors.forename: Eleanor
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Miles
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013850:Thinking / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Current concerns; Experience sampling; Mental time travel; Mind-wandering; Negative mood