Investigating the appraisal structure of spontaneous thoughts: evidence for differences among unexpected thought, involuntary autobiographical memories, and ruminative thought.

ABSTRACT: Involuntary thinking occurs when mental states arise without intention. Such thoughts can take different forms, such as involuntary autobiographical memories (IAM), ruminative thoughts, and unexpected thoughts-all of which are popular areas of study, albeit in somewhat disparate literatures. Despite these mental states sharing a common thread of feeling involuntary in nature, it is nevertheless unclear what separates them phenomenologically. We conducted a set of exploratory and confirmatory experiments to elucidate the appraisal dimensions behind these forms of involuntary thought, with a particular interest in understanding the phenomenology behind unexpected thoughts that are predicted to violate expectations of both timing and content. Across two experiments, we found that unexpected t

SUBMITTER: Poulos C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10497430 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature