Author: Diane Nayda
Nayda, Diane, 2025 Minds that Wander, Moods that Waver: The Influence of Negative Thinking, Cognitive Avoidance, Meta-Awareness and Mood Fluctuations on the Mind-Wandering and Depression Relationship, Flinders University, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work
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Mind-wandering, with and without explicit awareness (i.e., meta-awareness), is associated with depression. But how we become meta-aware and what cognitive processes (e.g. dissociation, negative thinking patterns) contribute to this mind-wandering and depression relationship remains unclear. Additionally, studies investigating this relationship using laboratory-based mood induction and mind-wandering tasks assume mood remains stable, but this assumption has not been tested. My thesis addresses these gaps by (1) investigating which cognitive processes influence mind-wandering and meta-awareness to maintain depression, and (2) testing the assumption that mood remains stable during a mind-wandering protocol that is used to in examine the effect of mood on mind-wandering.
Existing literature shows both mind-wandering and depression are associated with negative thinking patterns including rumination and meta-cognitive beliefs (e.g., that thoughts are uncontrollable and dangerous). My thesis extends these studies by considering how such patterns—together with maladaptive strategies of dissociation, thought suppression and control—might connect mind-wandering and depression. Studies 1 and 2 showed participants who mind-wandered without meta-awareness and tended to ruminate—specifically brood—were more depressed. Additionally, mind-wandering contributed to depression, partly through maladaptive meta-cognitive beliefs (i.e., uncontrollability of thoughts), and maladaptive strategies (i.e., dissociation, thought suppression and control tendencies). Study 3 tested one of these strategies—dissociation (including amnestic, derealisation and absorption subtypes)—within a five-chain serial mediation model. This model, predicting that mind-wandering increases negative thinking patterns, and activates dissociation tendencies, which in turn reduces meta-awareness and contributes to more depression symptoms, was not supported. However, removing meta-awareness, a four-chain model was supported. Thus, mind-wandering increases negative thinking tendencies, activating dissociation tendency, contributing to greater depression. My thesis is the first research to show while meta-awareness of mind-wandering is associated with depression, dissociation mediates the relationship between mind-wandering and negative thinking patterns with depression.
My thesis tested the assumption that prior mood remains stable during a commonly used mind-wandering task (Sustained Attention to Response Task; SART), by measuring mood before and after this task. Study 4—including a prior negative, positive, or neutral mood induction—showed negative mood improved, while positive and neutral mood deteriorated. Study 5—without a mood induction—showed an overall mood deterioration during the SART. Study 6 tested whether continuing the mood induction music throughout the SART maintained the induced mood. However, there was no difference in mood deterioration between participants listening to music compared to those without music. My thesis is the first to test and challenge the assumption of mood stability during the SART, showing mood’s association with mind-wandering and meta-awareness may be partly spurious due to an interaction of mood with the task.
These studies have clinical and methodological implications. First, people who mind-wander tend to brood and hold maladaptive meta-cognitive beliefs (i.e. negative thinking patterns), and are more depressed, partly because they tend to activate maladaptive strategies (i.e., dissociation, thought suppression and control). Addressing these strategies, particularly dissociation, in treating depression might bring awareness to, and disengagement from, negative thinking patterns to ultimately improve treatment outcomes. Second, future emotion research should account for the unintended effect of task on mood when designing studies to better control for potential confounds.
Keywords: mind-wandering, depression, meta-awareness, dissociation, brooding, perseverative thinking
Subject: Psychiatry thesis
Thesis type: Doctor of Philosophy
Completed: 2025
School: College of Education, Psychology and Social Work
Supervisor: Professor Melanie Takarangi