A new study, currently in preprint, reports on what Americans think about. Using a technique called the experience sampling method (ESM), the researchers surveyed 258 Americans, who provided the researchers with 23,338 thought record entries. The respondents’ ages ranged from 19 to 71, while 47% were female, 21% were non-white, and education spans ranged from 10 and 21 years.

The respondents would get random notifications by way of an app throughout their days and would then file a thought record based on instructions. Respondents described the thought they were having when they received the notification, and reported:

Whether the thought was intrusive or intentional.
Which category it applied to, including:

Personal care, eat/drink, household activity, purchase, care/help family, care/help non-family, work related, education, civic/clubs, leisure/sports, calls/mail/email, and other.
Thought records were analyzed by the researchers for more granularity than these categories.

Their happiness at that time, on a 10-point scale.

Given the notifications would come randomly between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., the researchers could also analyze differences across time of the day. The findings of the study are fascinating and give us great insight into what people think about during their days.

What Did People Think About?

The largest category of thoughts related to senses/percepts—19.1% of thoughts were classed as such—many of which centered on interoceptive sensations, such as thinking about one’s tiredness.

The second most common category was work/job (16.6%), followed by food (14.2%). These three categories accounted for almost half (49.9%) of all thoughts recorded.

The next most popular categories accounted for around one quarter (22.8%) of thoughts: hobbies/games/play/art (10%), relationships/people (9.7%), and health/safety (7.6%).

The remaining categories were chores (6.9%), self-reflection (5.8%), financial/housing/shelter (2.3%), world issues/social issues/politics (3.2%), narratives/stories (2.3%), and music (1.4%).

Interestingly, the authors reported that what people were thinking about predicted momentary happiness more strongly than what they were doing, or characteristics such as demography or socioeconomic status.

Why Were They Thinking These Thoughts?

Among the five causes of thoughts that were self-reported, 41% were reported as intentional (i.e., the person chose to be thinking about x), 31% were self-reported as being due to wandering (cognitively), 27% related to what the person was doing, 15% related to what they were observing or listening to, and 8% were due to being reminded of something. Participants could select multiple choices when classifying these.

In terms of whether participants reported that thoughts were intentional or intrusive, 56% reported intentionality, 23% reported thoughts as being accidental, while 21% were reported as being intrusive.

Who Were They Thinking About?

In the area of relational thoughts, friend was the most commonly used term. The frequency with which people reported thinking about friends was almost the same as reporting on four romantic relational terms in husband, wife, boyfriend, and girlfriend. Friends were mentioned 4.4 times more than co-workers, though the authors themselves highlight that a friend can be a co-worker, so this might have related more to framing. Altogether, 46% of participants mentioned thinking about friends at least once.

Pets were commonly thought about, with cats and dogs (combined) slightly exceeding the frequency of daughters and sons (combined). It would be important to know if this analysis controlled for whether or not the respondent had children, or was it a case that more participants owned pets, or that participants had more pets than children. Spouses thought of each other, but not as much as they thought of their children. Fathers, sisters, and brothers appeared relatively less than children, while mothers were thought about more than all three combined, and three times more than fathers. Again, analyses here would ideally control for whether one or both parents are alive.

Four Clusters of Thinkers

The authors used cluster analysis to find patterns in thinking styles and reported four clusters:

Worrier—thought about world/political/social issues 60% more, and health/safety 50% more, than the average. Intriguingly, they also listened to music twice as frequently.
Domestic—thought about finances/housing, chores, and narratives/stories around 50% more than average.
Bodily—thought a lot about senses/percepts, tuning into their bodies, around 50% higher than the average. The authors reported this as being 64% female.
Work-hard play-hard—thought about work 50% more than average, and hobbies/games/arts around 25% more, and were 63% male.

Conclusion

The study gives a fascinating insight into day-to-day thinking across a cross-section of Americans over a two-week period. While the broad categories of thinking clusters can be useful initial data, more rigorous research would need to further test this beyond 258 people. As well as more general considerations about the potential weakness of relying on self-report, self-reporting on one’s inner thoughts will likely include a high degree of filtering, if not persona projecting. Shyness, embarrassment, and other self-conscious emotions like guilt would likely play a role. Another consideration lies in type of thinking, with this study seemingly assessing mostly System 2 thinking. Lastly, relying on participants who have been motivated by a financial reward and have been self-selected also tempers generalizability of the findings. With all that said, the study provides useful insights.