Open AccessThe association of motivation with mind wandering in trait and state levels
Author(s) -
Toshikazu Kawagoe,
Keiichi Onoda,
Shûhei Yamaguchi
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0237461
Subject(s) - trait , association (psychology) , psychology , correlation , novelty , experience sampling method , confounding , phenomenon , causality (physics) , task (project management) , social psychology , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , statistics , mathematics , physics , computer science , geometry , management , quantum mechanics , economics , psychotherapist , programming language
Mind wandering (MW) is a phenomenon in which attention drifts away from task-related thoughts toward task-unrelated thoughts. Recent studies have demonstrated that MW occurs during tasks in which participants are unmotivated. However, motivation ranges on a continuum from trait to state. We examined the association between trait-state motivation and trait-state MW. Participants (176 undergraduate students 18–24 years old; 68 male) completed three questionnaires for our trait level investigation. State level indices were measured using the experience sampling method with 104 students completing a sustained attention to response task. Through correlation analyses, we demonstrated an association between motivation and MW within the same dimension (trait and state, respectively) but found no association across dimensions in which the correlation coefficient was nearly zero. We show the significant association between motivation and MW whose novelty is especially evident in the trait level. Although the relationship between motivation and MW is substantial, trait-state dimensionality would be important for them. The state MW is a phasic phenomenon driven by a range of factors, one being state motivation. The causality and confounding factors remain to be further studied.