A recent study published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences provides evidence that people with higher levels of neuroticism tend to naturally focus their thoughts on life’s problems and uncertainties when their minds are at rest. This default tendency to dwell on negative topics suggests why these people often experience unhappiness and distress, even in the absence of direct stressors. By studying what people think in their idle moments, scientists hope to better understand the mental habits that cause everyday anxiety.
Psychologists describe neuroticism as a widespread personality trait that predisposes a person to experiencing negative emotions such as stress, anxiety, and sadness. People who score high on neuroticism are more likely to experience mental health problems such as general anxiety and depression.
Until now, scientists have typically studied neuroses by observing how people react to negative events or external threats. Emotional reactivity means experiencing greater than normal heightened emotions in response to stressful events. But focusing on emotional reactions does not explain why highly neurotic people often feel distressed, even when nothing particularly bad is happening.
To address this gap, researchers drew inspiration from old psychological theories and new neurological discoveries. Researcher Muhammad R. Asad explained, “From the 1950s to the 1970s, many personality psychologists explored the idea that personality is most evident in terms of spontaneous thought forms such as daydreams and daydreams.”
Asad pointed out that recent scientific literature is built on these concepts. “More recently, the literature on mind wandering and the default mode network (the brain network that activates when a person disengages from a task or action) has converged on earlier ideas, many of which were originally inspired by Freud’s framework,” he said.
“We were struck by how well we were able to develop a ‘thought sampling’ paradigm that is so well-structured to investigate what people think while they are awake and doing nothing,” Assad added. “These effects gave rise to the ‘blank’ paradigm, where people stare at a blank screen for a period of time and then tell us what happened in their minds.”
“Personality traits should be revealed by the thoughts you have when nothing is happening,” Assad continued. “In this study, we believe that people higher in neuroticism are more likely to choose to focus on problems and uncertainties in their lives, and that this line of thought is more likely to trigger negative emotions.”
To test their idea, the researchers conducted an initial study with 154 college students. First, the students completed a standard questionnaire to measure their level of neuroticism. They were then asked to sit alone in a small, unadorned room with a computer and simply observe their thoughts and feelings.
A computer program guided them through six blank periods, ranging from 20 seconds to 140 seconds, during which the screen was almost completely black. During these periods, participants had no tasks to complete and were free to let their minds wander. After each gap, students answered questions about what they were thinking about on a 7-point scale.
The questions asked participants to rate how much they think about themselves, their relationships, the good things in their lives, and their problems. They also rated how comfortable or uncomfortable they felt during that particular time block. This method allowed scientists to track how emotional states change as thoughts pass.
Scientists have discovered that there is a direct relationship between the content of a person’s thoughts and their emotional state at that moment. Thinking about good things is associated with pleasant emotions, but thinking about problems is associated with unpleasant emotions.
Participants with high neuroticism scores reported thinking about life’s problems more often and thinking about good things less often. Because of this thought pattern, highly neurotic people experienced more unpleasant emotions overall during the experiment. This pattern provides evidence that highly neurotic minds naturally tend to favor negative and unpleasant topics.
Based on these initial observations, the researchers conducted a second study with a new group of 180 college students. The procedure was similar to the first study, but included 12 blank periods instead of 6. The researchers also recorded responses using a sliding visual scale from 0 to 100 instead of the standard numbered options.
These sliding scales allowed us to more accurately measure the amount of time participants spent thinking about specific topics. In this second experiment, the scientists also added two new thinking categories to the assessment. Participants were asked to estimate how much time they spent thinking about goals, which are generally viewed as positive, and uncertainty, which is generally viewed as negative.
Pursuing goals tends to give people a sense of purpose, but facing uncertainty often creates feelings of worry and fear. By including these topics, the scientists hoped to capture the wide range of thoughts that typically occupy wandering minds. As in the first study, participants also rated their feelings of overall comfort.
The results of the second study confirmed the first observation and provided further details about how the mind wanders. Thinking about goals and good things predicts pleasant emotions, while thinking about problems and uncertainty predicts unpleasant emotions. Unlike the first study, the researchers also found that thinking about relationships was associated with pleasant feelings.
Participants who scored high on neuroticism spent significantly more time thinking about problems and uncertainties. At the same time, I spend much less time thinking about goals, positive aspects of life, and relationships. This tendency to focus on dark topics provides a powerful explanation for why neuroticism strongly predicts dissatisfaction with life.
These findings suggest that mental habits play an important role in shaping a person’s emotional experiences. Assad explained that ordinary people should realize that “you create your own reality by the kinds of thoughts you have.”
“Individuals who are susceptible to negative affect appear to foster negative affect by choosing to think about problems and uncertainties in default situations,” Assad continued. “Perhaps these findings may show us how to change our pessimistic ways of living.”
Although these findings are useful for examining the resting mind, the researchers acknowledge that their method has limitations. “We need more research of the current type,” Assad noted.
“For example, we could run more trials or assess spontaneous thoughts over several days to get a thinking assessment that reflects more chronic trends (over time),” Assad explained. “We would also like to see studies investigating whether recent experiences (e.g., being in a negative mood state) alter the frequency of problematic thoughts, especially at higher levels of neuroticism.”
Scientists hope to track the flow of human cognition in the future. “I would like to begin exploring what William James so eloquently wrote about, ‘stream of consciousness,'” Assad said, referring to the famous philosopher and psychologist William James.
“For example, does having a certain thought at time A result in another thought at time B?” Assad asked. “In other words, do thoughts cause each other in traceable ways, and do such thought streams vary by personality?”
Scientists hope to unlock deeper insights into human cognition by improving experimental methods. “If we can change the paradigm to be more sensitive, we might be able to actually see how people’s minds work,” Assad concluded.
The study, “Dark Thinking: Default Thinking Tendencies as a Function of Neuroticism,” was authored by Muhammad R. Assad, Hamidreza Fereyduni, and Michael D. Robinson.
