Idle Thoughts Management Scale

Abstract

The term “idle thoughts” refers to those recurring thoughts that often arise when a person is usually doing nothing, such as waiting for something etc. These thoughts have been reported to often adopt the shape of a stream, one thought often leading to another, and a person finds himself detracted and lost in a pool of random thoughts within no time. Moreover, these thoughts may also become disturbing some of the times, causing stress, panic, anxiety and even depression. The current research endeavored at constructing a scale which could measure how these idle thoughts are managed by the thinker. Idle Thoughts Management Scale comprises of twenty-one items and five subscales: Engaging Thoughts, Strategize and Plan, Diverting through social media, Diverting through book reading and Prayers for fulfillment of thoughts. The tool has well established psychometric properties, a considerable internal consistency reliability and a significant construct validity. It can be utilized for further research especially in Cognitive Psychology.

Keywords: Idle thoughts, recurring thoughts, random thoughts