How Mood Effects Mind Wondering

Abstract:

The concept of how moods effect mind wondering is not much old, and the history can be traced back to a few decades. The paper seeks to investigate the effect of mood states on mind wondering, and the way the different ways place the impact on the working on mind. The history of the concept, along with details of a few prior researches is included in order to present a clear idea of the concept and make several points clear.

Although the concept is not an old, several researches have been conducted in recent times that deal with the effects of mood on mind wondering. Most of the researches include induction of different moods in the participants, including neutral, positive and negative moods, and the frequency of irrelevant and wandered thoughts is then calculated to get an idea of the effect of mood on wandering of mind. It is generally found that negative mood encourages mind to wander, where as positive thoughts put a halt to the process and allow more concentration to the task at hand. This also implies that negative or bad mood generally results in lack of attention, which also consequently reduces the effectiveness and productivity.

The paper also seeks to include the history of the concept and presents views of various scientists and neurologists on the subject, so as to include a medical touch, in addition to the psychological side. The other concepts related to the subject, like reduction of concentration and effect of mind wandering on mood are also discussed briefly in the paper.

How Moods Effect Mind Wondering

Introduction:

The concept of Mind Wondering is simple—it is an everyday experiences that every individual comes across in one way or the other, and thus it does not need any explanation. However, putting it in simplest terms, the process can be defined as a state where mind cases to concentrate on the work at hand and starts getting indulged in unrelated and irrelevant thoughts, which are neither useful nor related. The result of this process is usually losing of concentration and increased risk of making mistakes, thus affecting the productivity and affectivity of an individual.

The state has been of serious concern for the psychologists and the neurologists, and thus several researches have been conducted to find the relation between the two—mood and mind wondering, in order to control one and bring changes in the other. The various researches being conducted, in addition to their results, relevant concepts ad history of the researches is mentioned in the following paragraphs:

The concept of effect of mood on mind wondering:

It is said that wondering mind, in most of the cases, is a result of emotions and thoughts of a person, and happy people are reported to have less wandering mind as compared to the gloomy and depressed ones. A number of philosophical, as well as religious traditions, also encourage the idea, by providing trainings of remaining happy and avoiding bad mood, in order to increase concentration and also to increase productivity of ...