Positive and negative mind wandering: an assessment of their relationship with mindfulness and metacognition in university students / Divagación mental positiva y negativa: evaluando su relación con la atención plena y la metacognición en estudiantes universitarios

Abstract This article reports the results of an initial study whose purpose was to create a mind wandering scale in Spanish through documenting evidence of its validity. Then, it presents the results of a second study that develops correlation and regression analysis on the relationship between positive and negative mind wandering, mindfulness, metacognition and frequency of daydreaming. Positive mind wandering has a positive correlation with all the mindfulness facets and metacognition scales, with the exception of the Academic Difficulties scale. Negative mind wandering has a negative correlation with all the mindfulness facets and metacognition scales, with two exceptions: Observing, which is uncorrelated with Negative Mind Wandering, and Academic Difficulties, which correlates positively. Likewise, the study allowed a preliminary identification of how positive and negative mind wandering — as well as facets of mindfulness — predict different metacognition scales. Upon examination of interaction effects, three significant — negative — effects were detected between positive mind wandering and the frequency of daydreaming when predicting (i) Independent Thinking, (ii) Academic Self-efficacy and (iii) Metacognitive Strategies. This suggests that, for these three response variables, the positive effects associated with positive mind wandering decrease as the frequency of daydreaming increases.