Individual differences in self-consciousness and mind wandering: Further evidence for a dissociation between spontaneous and deliberate mind wandering

Recent research on individual differences in MW has consistently shown that spontaneous and deliberate MW can be distinguished being differentially associated with a number of psychological traits. The present study aimed to further investigate this distinction by investigating the associations between the two types of MW and two dispositional sub-types of self-consciousness, namely, self-rumination and self-reflection. Specifically, we specified a structural equation model in order to test the hypotheses that (1) self-rumination predicts spontaneous mind-wandering over and above neuroticism, and (2) self-reflection predicts deliberate mind-wandering over and above need for cognition (i.e., the tendency for an individual to engage in and enjoy thinking). Data were collected on 252 online participants. We found that while the spontaneous and deliberate MW were positively associated with each other, spontaneous MW was uniquely positively predicted by self-rumination, over and above neuroticism, whereas deliberate MW was uniquely positively predicted by self-reflection, over and above need for cognition. These results provide further support for the distinction between the two types of MW and suggest specific motivational dispositions for doing spontaneous and deliberate MW.