Zedelius Claire M, Protzko John, Schooler Jonathan W
University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2021 Jun;47(6):921-938. doi: 10.1177/0146167220949408. Epub 2020 Aug 28.
People often fail to keep their mind from wandering. Here, we examine how the tendency to mind wander is affected by people's beliefs, or lay theories. Building on research on lay theories and self-regulation, we test whether differences in people's beliefs about the extent to which mind wandering is controllable affect thought control strategies and mind-wandering rates in daily life and the laboratory. We develop a new scale to assess control-related beliefs about mind wandering. Scores on the scale predict mind wandering (Study 1) and intrusive thoughts (Study 2) in everyday life, thought control strategies and dysfunctional responses to unwanted thoughts (Study 2), and mind wandering during reading in the laboratory (Studies 3-6). Moreover, experimentally induced lay theories affect mind-wandering rates during reading (Studies 4 and 5). Finally, the effectiveness of strategies people can use to reduce their mind wandering depends on their lay theories (Studies 2 and 6).
人们常常难以让自己的思绪不游离。在此，我们探讨思绪游离的倾向是如何受到人们的信念（即朴素理论）影响的。基于对朴素理论和自我调节的研究，我们测试了人们对于思绪游离可控程度的信念差异是否会影响日常生活和实验室环境中的思维控制策略及思绪游离频率。我们开发了一种新的量表来评估与思绪游离控制相关的信念。该量表的得分能够预测日常生活中的思绪游离（研究1）和侵入性思维（研究2）、思维控制策略以及对 unwanted thoughts 的功能失调反应（研究2），还有实验室阅读过程中的思绪游离（研究3 - 6）。此外，通过实验诱导的朴素理论会影响阅读过程中的思绪游离频率（研究4和5）。最后，人们用于减少思绪游离的策略的有效性取决于他们的朴素理论（研究2和6）。
