Mind-wandering during long-distance running and mood change. The role of working memory capacity and temporal orientation of thoughts

Miś, Malwina; Kowalczyk, Marek

doi:10.1080/1612197x.2020.1766538

Cited by 8 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 51 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…A commonly reported content of thought concerns mentally traveling to the future, which involves the crafting of immediate or long-term concrete goals about the future or fantasizing about what could happen. In our review, of the six studies that examined future-oriented content of unprompted thoughts, five reported a relationship between future-oriented thoughts and increased positive mood or decreased negative mood (Beaty et al, 2019; Ji et al, 2022; Miś & Kowalczyk, 2021; Nyklíček et al, 2021; Ruby et al, 2013). One study used a postrunning questionnaire to capture the content of unprompted thought and found future-oriented thoughts were uniquely related to improved mood postrun compared to prerun (Miś & Kowalczyk, 2021).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In our review, of the six studies that examined future-oriented content of unprompted thoughts, five reported a relationship between future-oriented thoughts and increased positive mood or decreased negative mood (Beaty et al, 2019; Ji et al, 2022; Miś & Kowalczyk, 2021; Nyklíček et al, 2021; Ruby et al, 2013). One study used a postrunning questionnaire to capture the content of unprompted thought and found future-oriented thoughts were uniquely related to improved mood postrun compared to prerun (Miś & Kowalczyk, 2021). Another study used experience sampling in a task context and found that the negative relationship between future-oriented thoughts and negative mood is mediated by optimism (Ji et al, 2022).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

On the relationship between unprompted thought and affective well-being: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Kam,

Wong,

Thiemann

et al. 2024

Psychological Bulletin

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There is a growing recognition that thoughts often arise independently of external demands. These thoughts can span from reminiscing your last vacation to contemplating career goals to fantasizing about meeting your favorite musician. Often referred to as mind wandering, such frequently occurring unprompted thoughts have widespread impact on our daily functions, with the dominant narrative converging on a negative relationship between unprompted thought and affective well-being. In this systematic review of 76 studies, we implemented a meta-analysis and qualitative review to elucidate if and when unprompted thought is indeed negatively associated with affective well-being in adults. Using a multilevel mixed-model approach on 386 effect sizes from 23,168 participants across 64 studies, our meta-analyses indicated an overall relationship between unprompted thought and worse affective well-being (r = −.18, 95% CI [−.23, −.14]); however, the magnitude and direction of this relationship changed when considering specific aspects of the phenomenon (including thought content and intentionality) and methodological approaches (including questionnaires vs. experience sampling). The qualitative review further contextualizes this relationship by revealing the nuances of how and when unprompted thought is associated with affective well-being. Taken together, our metaanalysis and qualitative review indicate that the commonly reported relationship between unprompted thought and affective well-being is contingent upon the content and conceptualization of unprompted thought, as well as the methodological and analytic approaches implemented. Based on these findings, we propose emerging directions for future empirical and theoretical work that highlight the importance of accounting for when, how, and for whom unprompted thought is associated with affective well-being. Public Significance StatementA large portion of our mental content is "unprompted" by nature such that it is unrelated to the ongoing task or our physical surroundings. Our meta-analytic review provides a comprehensive overview of how unprompted thought relates to how we feel, revealing that unprompted thoughts are generally associated with reduced affective well-being. Notably, this relationship was mitigated and at times reversed depending on the content of unprompted thought as well as how it was defined and measured. We found that unprompted thoughts were associated with worse affective well-being only when thoughts were unintentional, ruminative, and contain negative content. In fact, this relationship was not reliable when time-sensitive measures were used, and it even turned positive during future-oriented, positive, or freely moving thoughts. Taken together, we found that the type and content of unprompted thought can determine whether it is linked to our happiness.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the relationship between unprompted thought and affective well-being: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Kam,

Wong,

Thiemann

et al. 2024

Psychological Bulletin

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Future research needs to consider different demographic characteristics to assess whether our findings apply to a broader population. Second, we only assessed affective valence but not affective arousal, which has been shown to have a differential relationship with different thought dimensions (Mills et al, 2021;Miś & Kowalczyk, 2020;Poerio et al, 2015). Future investigations of the relationship between different thought dimensions and affect should include measurements of both affective valence and arousal to provide a thorough characterization of this relationship.…”

Section: Limitations and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differential relationships between thought dimensions and momentary affect in daily life

Thiemann

Mills

Kam

2022

Psychological Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Commonly used to characterize mind wandering, task-unrelated thought has long been associated with negative affective outcomes. However, less is known about how other thought dimensions including intentionality and freedom of movement interact with task-unrelated thought to modulate momentary affect in everyday life. To address this, we used ecological momentary assessments to prompt participants to report their thought patterns and affective valence five times a day for seven consecutive days. Each assessment asked participants to report on their affective valence as well as several thought dimensions including their task-relatedness, intentionality and freedom of movement. We examined the latter two thought dimensions alone as well as how they interacted with the commonly examined dimension of task-relatedness with respect to their relationship to momentary affect. We replicated the well-established negative relationship between task-unrelated thought and momentary affect. Furthermore, unintentional task-unrelated thought was associated with more negative affect than intentional thought. This pattern was also observed more broadly in thoughts regardless of their task relevance. In contrast, freely moving thought was positively related to momentary affect in general. A significant interaction between task-relatedness and freedom of movement of thought revealed that the commonly reported negative relationship between task-unrelated thought and more negative affect is mitigated by freely moving thought. In summary, our findings indicate that these various thought dimensions have unique relationships with momentary affect, highlighting the importance of accounting for thought dimensions in establishing its affective and possibly other functional consequences.

show abstract

“…Mind wandering is defined as thinking unrelated to the ongoing task (Smallwood and Schooler, 2015) and mentally moving hither and thither without a fixed course or certain aim (Christoff et al, 2016). One can hypothesize that subtly fascinating natural environments (e.g., clouds) support mind wandering (Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989;Williams et al, 2018) and this in turn reduces stress (Miś and Kowalczyk, 2020). Potential moderators may be an individual's habitual environment, and representations and expectations of green exercise.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Natural Environment of Physical Activity and Perceived Stress: The Mediating Role of Specific Recovery Experiences

Schmid¹,

Imbach²,

Klaperski³

et al. 2021

Front. Sports Act. Living

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate a potential psychological mechanism of green exercise on perceived stress. More precisely, it was analyzed whether the relationship between the natural environment of physical activity and perceived stress was mediated by recovery experiences, namely by psychological detachment and relaxation. An ecological momentary assessment approach was used, meaning that specific recovery experiences were assessed directly in real-life situations and multiple times.Materials and methods: Thirty five women and 27 men took part in the ecological momentary assessment study over seven days (Mage = 32.30 years, SD = 10.23, 53% had a degree from a university or a university of applied science). If participants were involved in PA lasting at least 10 min on a given day, they had to answer questionnaires on the smartphone both prior to the activity and immediately afterwards. Perceived naturalness, psychological detachment and relaxation were assessed after physical activity events, whereas perceived stress was measured before and after each physical activity event. A two-level mediation analysis was conducted. The direct and indirect effect of perceived naturalness on perceived stress after engagement in physical activity was analyzed on the within- and between-person levels.Results and conclusion: Results showed that the relaxation as a recovery experience served as mediator between perceived naturalness and perceived stress after engagement in physical activity, but only on a within-person level. This means that the more natural a given individual appraised the physical activity environment, the more relaxed he or she felt during physical activity (β = 0.322, p < 0.0005). Furthermore the more relaxed the individual was, the less stress he or she perceived after exercising (β = −0.221, p < 0.0005). The psychological detachment as a recovery experience in contrast, did not serve as mediator, neither at the within- and the between-person level. Considering the indirect effect of perceived naturalness on perceived stress and the importance of relaxation experiences, current findings suggest that research should put greater emphasis on examining the specific psychological mechanisms of green exercise to make even better use of its beneficial effects in the future.

show abstract

Mind-wandering during long-distance running and mood change. The role of working memory capacity and temporal orientation of thoughts

Cited by 8 publications

References 51 publications

On the relationship between unprompted thought and affective well-being: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

On the relationship between unprompted thought and affective well-being: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Differential relationships between thought dimensions and momentary affect in daily life

The Natural Environment of Physical Activity and Perceived Stress: The Mediating Role of Specific Recovery Experiences

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About