Patterns of ongoing thought in the real world and their links to mental health and well-being

The thoughts we experience in daily life have implications for our mental health and well-being. However, it is often difficult to measure thought patterns outside of laboratory conditions due to concerns about the voracity of measurements taken in daily life. To address this gap in the literature, our study set out to measure patterns of thought as they occur in daily life and assess the robustness of these measures and their associations with trait measurements of mental health and well-being. A sample of undergraduate participants completed multi-dimensional experience sampling surveys eight times per day for five days as they went around their normal lives. Principal Component Analysis reduced these data to identify the dimensions that explained the patterns of thought reported by our participants. We used linear modelling to map how these thought patterns related to the activities taking place at the time of the probe, highlighting good consistency within the sample, as well as substantial overlap with prior work. Multiple regression was used to examine associations between patterns of ongoing thought and aspects of mental health and well-being, highlighting a pattern of ‘Intrusive Distraction’ that had a positive association with anxiety, and a negative association with social well-being. Notably, this thought pattern tended to be most prevalent in solo activities and was relatively suppressed when interacting with other people (either in person or virtually). Our study, therefore, highlights the use of multi-dimensional experience sampling as a tool to understand how ongoing thought in daily life impacts on our mental health and well-being and establishes the important role social connectedness plays in the etiology of intrusive thinking.