Role Of Rumination Research Articles

The role of rumination, attentional biases and stress in psychological distress

This experimental study examines the relationship between rumination and attentional bias. Additionally, the study aims to determine, within a diathesis-stress framework, whether rumination or attentional bias (or both) can prospectively predict psychological distress. Eighty-one participants completed selected measures of rumination and psychological distress at time one, in addition to experimental manipulations of rumination and mood, and measures of mood and attentional bias at time two. Seventy-three participants (90% follow-up) completed final measures of stress and psychological distress approximately 3 weeks later. In combination with negative mood, inducing rumination decreased positive attentional bias, whilst inducing distraction increased positive attentional bias. Rumination and stress interacted to predict change in psychological distress. Negative attentional bias showed a trend towards interacting with rumination and stress to predict dysphoria. The findings supported the proposed diathesis-stress models. In addition, a causal relationship between rumination and positive attentional bias has been empirically established for the first time.

The Role of Rumination in the Coexistence of Distress and Posttraumatic Growth Among Bereaved Japanese University Students

This study examined the relationships between rumination, distress and posttraumatic growth (PTG). Seventy-one bereaved Japanese university students completed the PTG Inventory, the Impact of Event Scale-Revised, and a rumination scale. Three models, with variables including intrusive rumination, deliberate rumination, distress, and PTG, were tested using structural equation modeling. Results indicated that 1 model, which depicted recent intrusive rumination leading to distress and deliberate rumination soon after the event leading to PTG, with distress and PTG coexisting, was shown to best fit the data. Present findings offer implications for future research on PTG.

Daily hassles and emotional eating in obese adolescents under restricted dietary conditions—The role of ruminative thinking

Emotional eating is conceptualized as eating in response to negative affect or distress and is discussed as a mechanism leading to eating binges. Recent evidence suggests that eating may not only be triggered by negative affect, but also ruminative thinking. We report results of an experience sampling study examining the role of rumination for emotional eating in 16 obese adolescents ( M = 15.5 years, S.D. = 1.4; range 14–17, body mass index M = 31.1 kg m −2, S.D. = 5.5) under restricted dietary conditions. We hypothesized that daily hassles type of stress predicted the individuals’ desire to eat, with the predictive value further increased when negative affect and rumination were accounted for. The results of mixed regression modeling were in line with our predictions, suggesting a significant contribution of ruminative thinking to the mechanisms of negative affect induced eating.

The Role of Rumination and Reduced Concreteness in the Maintenance of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Depression Following Trauma

Rumination has been linked to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression following trauma. A cross-sectional (N = 101) and a prospective longitudinal study (N = 147) of road traffic accident survivors assessed rumination, PTSD and depression with self-report measures and structured interviews. We tested the hypotheses that (1) rumination predicts the maintenance of PTSD and depression and (2) reduced concreteness of ruminative thinking may be a maintaining factor. Rumination significantly predicted PTSD and depression at 6 months over and above what could be predicted from initial symptom levels. In contrast to the second hypothesis, reduced concreteness in an iterative rumination task was not significantly correlated with self-reported rumination frequency, and did not consistently correlate with symptom severity measures. However, multiple regression analyses showed that the combination of reduced concreteness and self-reported frequency of rumination predicted subsequent PTSD better than rumination frequency alone. The results support the view that rumination is an important maintaining factor of trauma-related emotional disorders.

Non-Abusive Mothers of Sexually Abused Children: The Role of Rumination in Maternal Outcomes

ABSTRACT This study of 125 mothers examined the role of rumination in maternal emotional and behavioral outcomes subsequent to discovery of the sexual abuse of their children. Abuse severity, a maternal history of child abuse experiences, and life hassles were examined as predictors of negative outcomes. The central finding was that these factors, many of which are not controllable, were less likely to predict poor maternal outcomes than was rumination, a cognitive process that may be alterable. Rumination was the strongest correlate with each outcome. Further, the effects of most predictors on outcomes in this study were mediated by a ruminative cognitive style. Abuse severity, income, ethnicity, and education lacked significant relationships with maternal outcomes. This study asserts that rumination is a central component for understanding maternal outcomes in the post-discovery phase of sexual abuse cases. It recommends that rumination be routinely assessed both for research and treatment purposes.

Reducing specificity of autobiographical memory in nonclinical participants: The role of rumination and schematic models

Two experiments are reported in which nondysphoric participants, not prone to excessive levels of rumination in everyday life, were asked to retrieve autobiographical memories using the Williams and Broadbent (1986) procedure (AMT). In the first experiment, two variants of a self‐related category fluency task were interleaved among sets of autobiographical memory cues. In one variant (blocked) a normal model of analytic rumination was induced by grouping prompts on a single superordinate theme together. In the other (intermixed) prompts from several different themes were grouped together. It was predicted that the blocked variant would reduce the number of specific memories recollected and increase the number of categoric memories relative to the intermixed variant. This prediction was confirmed and provides the first demonstration of a bidirectional causal influence of analytic rumination on the balance between specific and categoric retrievals. A second experiment showed no alteration in this balance when the same fluency manipulation involved animal‐related categories rather than self‐related ones. The results support a two component model of autobiographical retrieval being driven in part by the extent to which an analytic mode of processing is adopted in the short term and in part by the level of differentiation in self‐related schematic models.

Predicting psychological distress in college students: The role of rumination and stress

Psychological distress among college students represents a serious health concern. The aim of this research was to investigate, for the first time, whether interactions between rumination and different measures of stress could differentially predict components of psychological distress, within a diathesis-stress framework. This self-report study employed a longitudinal design, spanning a period of 6 months. One hundred sixty-one undergraduate college students completed selected measures of psychological distress, rumination, and stress at two time points 6 months apart. Both independent and interaction effects were examined through hierarchical regression analyses. Rumination and stress were found to interact significantly to predict the social dysfunction components of psychological distress. Other main effects are reported. The evidence supported the proposed diathesis-stress model and extended previous research by relating rumination to different components of psychological distress prospectively.

The Role of Rumination in Recovery from Reactivity: Cardiovascular Consequences of Emotional States

The Role of Rumination in Recovery from Reactivity: Cardiovascular Consequences of Emotional States

The role of rumination in recovery from reactivity: cardiovascular consequences of emotional states.

While most investigations of the link between blood pressure responses and later disease have focused on acute reactivity during stressful tasks, there is some theoretical and empirical reason to believe that examining recovery and later re-creations of BP responses may also be useful. Two experiments explored situational determinants of sustained BP elevations, examining whether the extent of recovery and the ability to later mentally recreate the response are influenced by the magnitude or emotionality of the initial task and also whether preventing rumination after a stressor has ended speeds recovery. Experiment 1, with 72 normotensive male and female undergraduates, examined BP and heart rate before, during, and after a task and also before, during, and after the mental re-creation of that task. Four tasks were used, designed to produce high initial reactivity with an emotional component (mental arithmetic with harassment), low reactivity with emotion (shock avoidance), high reactivity without emotion (physical exercise), or low reactivity without emotion (cold pressor). Experiment 2, with 20 normotensive male and female undergraduates, compared the cardiovascular recovery of persons who were either given a distractor task or just sat quietly immediately after a mental arithmetic task. Study 1 revealed that only the emotional tasks were associated with delayed BP recovery and elevations during later rumination. Blood pressure during recovery and later rumination was independent of the original reactivity. Experiment 2 found that participants with the distractor, who presumably could not ruminate, showed better BP recovery. Situations that put people at risk may include not just those that cause large BP elevations, but also emotion-producing situations that lead to sustained and recurring elevations.

The role of rumination in depressive disorders and mixed anxiety/depressive symptoms.

Several studies have shown that people who engage in ruminative responses to depressive symptoms have higher levels of depressive symptoms over time, after accounting for baseline levels of depressive symptoms. The analyses reported here showed that rumination also predicted depressive disorders, including new onsets of depressive episodes. Rumination predicted chronicity of depressive disorders before accounting for the effects of baseline depressive symptoms but not after accounting for the effects of baseline depressive symptoms. Rumination also predicted anxiety symptoms and may be particularly characteristic of people with mixed anxiety/depressive symptoms.

The role of rumination in depressive disorders and mixed anxiety/depressive symptoms.

The role of rumination in depressive disorders and mixed anxiety/depressive symptoms.