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editorial

. 2014 Dec 9;5:1427. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01427

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Copyright © 2014 Fox, Thompson, Andrews-Hanna and Christoff.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

PMC Copyright notice

First-person reports about the experience of just thinking from Wilson et al. Histograms (A–C) showing the distribution of self-reported enjoyment (A), entertainment (B), and boredom (C), during “just thinking” across 190 participants in Studies 1–7. The mean scores across participants, indicated with red dots and dashed red lines, were (A) 5.21 (SD = 1.95), (B) 4.24 (SD = 2.04), and (C) 4.60 (SD = 2.14), respectively. These data clearly show that just thinking was somewhat enjoyable, somewhat entertaining, and somewhat boring—directly contradicting Wilson et al.'s claim that it was not enjoyable, and even aversive. (D) Number of shocks self-administered during a 15 min “just thinking” session in Study 10. Data are from the 42 participants who had previously said that they would pay money to not receive the shock. The data clearly show that a majority of participants prefer “just thinking” to receiving an electric shock.