The role of absorption in experiential involvement.

Abstract

The authors examined correlates of trait absorption to understand when and how pronounced engagement with attentional objects occurs. In Study 1 (N = 321), absorption and openness to experience were positively correlated (r =.64), and these involvement constructs were differentiated from Eysenck's Big 3 (Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Psychoticism; H. J. Eysenck & M. W. Eysenck, 1985). In Study 2 (N = 68), absorption was positively correlated with participation in the arts, with effects of art on mood, and with ratings of the importance of art to daily life (ps <.05). Absorption was negatively correlated with speed and positively correlated with productivity ofvisual figure-ground differentiation and was positively correlated with cross-modal elaborative processing (ps <.05). Trait absorption reflects (a) a motivational readiness to engage in experiential, noninstrumental functioning and (b) distinctive cognitive capacities to efficiently identify and richly elaborate objects of attention.