Mental wandering and its relationship to psychological flexibility among university students

Abstract

 Examining potential differences based on gender and academic specialization. Additionally, it seeks to investigate the level of psychological flexibility in this population, as well as any variations related to gender and specialization. Another key objective is to determine the nature of the relationship between mind wandering and psychological flexibility. To fulfill the research objectives, the researcher developed a Mind Wandering Scale comprising 22 items. For assessing psychological flexibility, the researcher employed the scale designed by Muhammad and Khader (2022), which includes 59 items. Both instruments were administered to a randomly selected sample of 300 students from Tikrit University. The findings indicated that university students do experience mind wandering, with significant differences observed based on gender and specialization. Furthermore, students demonstrated psychological flexibility, with no significant differences between genders. However, a difference was found between specializations, favoring students in scientific fields. The results also revealed a significant negative correlation between mind wandering and psychological flexibility.