Cognitive Interference: Situational Determinants and Traitlike Characteristics

This article presents a series of studies of cognitive interference and describes two instruments constructed to assess intrusive thoughts. One instrument obtains self-reports of cognitive interference immediately after performance on a task. The other one assesses the general tendency to experience intrusive thoughts. In addition to the psychometric properties of these instruments, this article relates their scores to relevant dependent measures. The results suggest the value of assessing cognitive activity as a situationally influenced product and as a personality variable.