title: Social psychology. Just think: the challenges of the disengaged mind.
abstract: In 11 studies, we found that participants typically did not enjoy spending 6 to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but think, that they enjoyed doing mundane external activities much more, and that many preferred to administer electric shocks to themselves instead of being left alone with their thoughts. Most people seem to prefer to be doing something rather than nothing, even if that something is negative.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA. tdw@virginia.edu.
authors.forename: Timothy D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
authors.forename: David A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Reinhard
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Erin C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Westgate
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Gilbert
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Nicole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ellerbeck
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Cheryl
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hahn
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Casey L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
authors.forename: Adi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shaked
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001288:Attention; D004597:Electroshock / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D008132:Loneliness / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D057181:Pleasure; D013850:Thinking; D055815:Young Adult