Abstract
Ruminative thinking is believed to exacerbate the psychological distress that follows stressful life events. An experience-sampling study was conducted in which participants recorded negative life events, ruminative self-focus, and negative affect eight times daily over one week. Occasions when participants reported a negative event were marked by higher levels of negative affect. Additionally, negative events were prospectively associated with higher levels of negative affect at the next sampling occasion, and this relationship was partially mediated by momentary ruminative self-focus. Depressive symptoms were associated with more frequent negative events, but not with increased reactivity to negative events. Trait rumination was associated with reports of more severe negative events and increased reactivity to negative events. These results suggest that the extent to which a person engages in ruminative self-focus after everyday stressors is an important determinant of the degree of distress experienced after such events. Further, dispositional measures of rumination predict mood reactivity to everyday stressors in a non-clinical sample.
Highlights
Dysfunctional mood regulation has been highlighted as a key factor in the onset and maintenance of psychological distress
Our finding of an association between negative events and negative affect replicates the results of other diary and experience-sampling studies (Marco & Suls, 1993; Peeters et al, 2003; Swendsen, 1998)
We found that prior negative events predicted negative mood up to three hours later, evidence from other experience-sampling methodology (ESM) studies has been inconsistent
Summary
Dysfunctional mood regulation has been highlighted as a key factor in the onset and maintenance of psychological distress. We conducted an ESM study in which adults reported their negative affect, ruminative self-focus, and negative events eight times daily for one week. We used ESM to assess negative affect, ruminative self-focus and negative events eight times daily over seven days. Participants rated their moods and thinking styles when signalled by an alarm from a wrist-worn actiwatch (Cambridge Neurotechnology Ltd., Cambridge, UK). Data were excluded from twenty-two participants who withdrew from the study during the week of experience sampling (n = 13, ESM was too time-consuming; n = 5, actiwatch malfunctioned; n = 1, illness; n = 1, family emergency; n = 1, experienced mood recording as upsetting; n = 1, ESM interfered with therapy). Linear and quadratic variables for time of day (measured in days and centred on the mean sampling time, 15:04) and linear variables for day of study (centred on day 4) were included as covariates
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