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Inferring attitudes from mindwandering.

Clayton R Critcher1, Thomas Gilovich

  • 1University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. ClaytonCritcher@haas.berkeley.edu

Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin
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PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

People infer their feelings about tasks by interpreting their mindwandering content. Positive, frequent, or concurrent thoughts suggest boredom and task dissatisfaction.

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Area of Science:

  • Psychology
  • Cognitive Science
  • Social Psychology

Background:

  • Self-perception theory explains attitude formation through behavior interpretation.
  • Mindwandering, an internal cognitive process, has been under-explored as a source of self-inference.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if individuals use the content of their mindwandering to infer attitudes toward ongoing tasks.
  • To determine if mindwandering content signals boredom versus enjoyable reverie.

Main Methods:

  • Four studies were conducted, examining participants' spontaneous inferences from their mindwandering.
  • Mindwandering content (positivity, timing, frequency) was analyzed in relation to task perceptions.
  • The influence of salient alternative causes for mindwandering was also tested.

Main Results:

  • Mindwandering content significantly influences perceived task satisfaction.
  • Positive, concurrent, and frequent mindwandering content is interpreted as boredom, leading to dissatisfaction.
  • This effect diminishes when an alternative explanation for mindwandering is apparent.

Conclusions:

  • Individuals spontaneously use mindwandering content as a cue for attitude assessment.
  • The interpretation of mindwandering is context-dependent, particularly regarding perceived causes.