The effects of self-focused rumination on global negative self-judgements in depression

Previous research in dysphoric participants has found that compared with distraction, rumination inductions are associated with increased levels of cognitive distortions and overgeneral autobiographical memories. Watkins and Teasdale ((2001) Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 110, 353–357) investigated which component of rumination was responsible for this effect in overgeneral memory, and found two distinct modes of ruminative self-focus, with analytical, evaluative self-focus maintaining overgeneral memory, whereas self-focus low in analytical thinking reduced overgeneral memory. The present study compared the effects of these two distinct forms of self-focused rumination with another measure of overgeneral thinking—global negative self-judgements. Thirty depressed participants and thirty never-depressed participants were randomly allocated to ‘analytic’ (high analysis) or ‘experiential’ (low analysis) self-focused manipulations. As predicted, in depressed participants, the analytical self-focus condition increased ratings of the self as worthless and incompetent pre- to post-manipulation, whereas the experiential self-focus condition resulted in no significant change in such judgements. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that an analytical mode of self-focused rumination may be particularly maladaptive in depression.     

Effects of Analytical and Experiential Self-focus on Rumination After a Stress Induction in Patients with Social Anxiety Disorder: A Pilot Study

According to cognitive models, negative post-event processing rumination is a key maintaining factor in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Analogue research has supported the differentiation of self-focus into different modes of self-focused attention with distinct effects on rumination in depression and social anxiety. The purpose of this study was to replicate these effects with a sample of clients with SAD (N = 12) using (a) an experimental, cross-over design and (b) an evaluation situation (impromptu speech) prior to manipulation. Processing an identical list of symptoms, half of a sample was asked to successively adopt an analytic (abstract, evaluative) and an experiential (concrete, process-focused) self-focus; the other half employed the modes in the reversed order. Effects were assessed with a thought-listing (TL) procedure. As predicted, the two modes of self-focused attention affected cognitions differently; participants in the experiential condition showed a tendency for a decreased proportion of negative thoughts, whereas those in the analytical condition reported a decreased proportion of neutral thoughts. No difference was shown on positive cognitions. Furthermore, the participants' self-evaluation following the speech predicted their degree of subsequent negative thinking. After self-focus inductions, however, this effect was only seen in those participants who started by receiving the analytical self-focus induction. The results support previous findings that the analytical and the experiential self-focus modes affect cognitions differently, and that experiential processing may have beneficial effects on rumination in SAD. However, results need to be replicated in a larger sample.     

自我聚焦对社交焦虑的影响：抽离与正念的调节作用

本文旨在探讨抽离和正念在自我聚焦对社交焦虑影响关系中的作用。两个研究分别采用相关法和实验法,探究自我聚焦内容（冗思、正念）和反思方式（浸入、抽离）对社交焦虑的交互影响。结果：问卷数据显示,抽离在自我聚焦注意影响社交焦虑的关系中起着调节作用,无论低抽离倾向还是高抽离倾向,自我聚焦注意都能预测社交焦虑,高抽离倾向减弱个体的社交焦虑感;实验结果表明,聚焦内容与反思方式两者交互作用于社交焦虑,浸入-聚焦冗思内容引发最强的社交焦虑,抽离-聚焦正念内容引发最弱的社交焦虑。结论：抽离和聚焦正念内容都最能有效缓解自我聚焦对社交焦虑的不良影响。     

Adaptive and maladaptive ruminative self-focus during emotional processing

Ruminative self-focus on mood, problems and other aspects of self-experience can have both mal adaptive consequences, perpetuating depression, and, adaptive consequences, promoting recovery from upsetting events. Increasing evidence suggests that these contrasting effects may be explained by distinct varieties of ruminative self-focus, each with distinct functional properties. This study tested the prediction (Emotional processing, three modes of mind and the prevention of relapse in depression. Behav. Res. Therapy, 37 (1999) S53) that an experiential mode of self-focused attention would facilitate recovery from an upsetting event in comparison to a conceptual-evaluative mode of self-focused attention. To test these contrasting effects experimentally, 69 participants wrote about an induced failure experience in either a conceptual-evaluative condition (e.g. "Why did you feel this way?"), or an experiential condition ("How did you feel moment-by-moment?"). Consistent with the hypothesis, higher levels of trait disposition to ruminate were associated with relatively greater increases in negative mood 12 h after the failure in the conceptual-evaluative condition compared to the experiential condition. Furthermore, the conceptual-evaluative condition resulted in more intrusions about the failure than the experiential condition. These results support the differentiation of rumination into distinct modes of self-focused attention with distinct functional effects; a conceptual-evaluative mode that is maladaptive and an experiential mode that is adaptive.     

Neural correlates of rumination in depression

Rumination, or recursive self-focused thinking, has important implications for understanding the development and maintenance of depressive episodes. Rumination is associated with the worsening of negative mood states, greater affective responding to negative material, and increased access to negative memories. The present study was designed to use fMRI to examine neural aspects of rumination in depressed and healthy control individuals. We used a rumination induction task to assess differences in patterns of neural activation during ruminative self-focus as compared with a concrete distraction condition and with a novel abstract distraction condition in 14 participants who were diagnosed with major depressive disorder and 14 healthy control participants. Depressed participants exhibited increased activation in the orbitofrontal cortex, subgenual anterior cingulate, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex as compared with healthy controls during rumination versus concrete distraction. Neural activity during rumination versus abstract distraction was greater for depressed than for control participants in the amygdala, rostral anterior cingulate/medial prefrontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate, and parahippocampus. These findings indicate that ruminative self-focus is associated with enhanced recruitment of limbic and medial and dorsolateral prefrontal regions in depression. Supplemental materials for this article may be downloaded from http://cabn.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Distinct modes of ruminative self-focus: impact of abstract versus concrete rumination on problem solving in depression

One account for the negative effects of rumination on social problem solving (SPS) is the symptom-focus hypothesis, which proposes that focus on symptoms amplifies the vicious cycle between depressed mood and negative cognition. The authors tested a contrasting account, the reduced concreteness hypothesis, which postulates that the abstract thinking typical of rumination impairs SPS. In 40 depressed patients and 40 never-depressed controls, SPS was assessed before and after versions of symptom-focused rumination known to differentially induce abstract versus concrete self-focus (E. Watkins & J. D. Teasdale, 2001). As predicted by reduced concreteness theory, relative to abstract self-focus, concrete self-focus improved SPS in depressed patients, suggesting that the particular mode of symptom-focus, rather than symptom-focus per se, determines the effects of rumination on problem solving.     

The Impact of Ruminative Processing on the Experience of Self-Referent Intrusive Memories in Dysphoria

The current study sought to experimentally assess the differential effects of analytical ruminative processing and distraction on the experience of self-referent naturally occurring intrusive memories in a sample of dysphoric (BDI-II ≥ 12) participants. Seventy-seven undergraduate participants completed a memory interview to elicit details about a self-referential intrusion and were randomly assigned to either an analytical rumination or distraction condition. Subsequent to the rumination induction, participants rated their intrusive memory as more negative, more distressing, and more evocative of a negative emotional response compared to participants who were allocated to the distraction induction. Inducing analytical rumination also resulted in participants reporting worse (i.e., more sad) mood relative to those in the distraction condition. The findings align with the suggestion that depressed individuals may get caught up in a ruminative cycle that, due to the documented effects of analytical self-focus, exacerbate the emotional response elicited by intrusions and perpetuate biased attentional focus on them. Directions for future investigations of the cognitive processes that are important in the maintenance of intrusions in depressive disorders are discussed.     

The effects of analytical and experiential rumination on autobiographical memory specificity in individuals with a history of major depression

This study examined the relationship between analytical rumination and autobiographical memory specificity in participants with a history of depression. Participants completed the autobiographical memory test twice, once before and once after an 8 min manipulation designed to increase either an abstract/analytical or concrete/experiential mode of information processing. Results indicated a significant three-way time (pre, post)×manipulation (analytical, experiential)×depressive rumination (high, low) interaction. This interaction was the result of a significant decline in memory specificity from pre- to post-manipulation in individuals reporting high levels of rumination about symptoms when depressed who were allocated to the analytical condition. The findings of this study extend previous work, suggesting that low memory specificity in formerly depressed patients may be a function of state levels of analytical self-focus, with this cognitive style being more easily reinstated in the recovery phase in those who report a greater trait tendency to ruminate about symptoms when low in mood.     

Looking at me,appreciating you: Self-focused attention distinguishes between gratitude and indebtedness

We provide evidence that self-focused attention (both dispositional and situationally induced) affects the evaluation of a benefactor. Specifically, self-focused attention distinguishes between gratitude and indebtedness. In Study 1, gratitude correlated negatively with dispositional public self-focused attention and social anxiety, whereas indebtedness correlated positively with public self-focused attention and social anxiety. In Study 2, participants recalled a recent benefit under either high self-focused attention, induced via a mirror, or low self-focused attention. Highly self-focused individuals recalled increased indebtedness, but not gratitude, toward a benefactor, relative to those in the control condition. Self-focused individuals also felt less commitment and closeness to the benefactor. The implications for the link between self-focus and social emotions (and thus social life) are discussed.     

Rumination and self-defining memories in the context of health concerns

Individuals with health anxiety report experiencing a strong sense of vulnerability to illness. Such beliefs may be driven by the biased recollection of past illness-related events. However, little research has explored the role of memory in health anxiety. In other disorders, rumination has also been identified as a process that leads individuals to recall memories dominated by the content of their concerns. This study examined the proposition that rumination might impact the content of “self-defining” autobiographical memories among 60 college students with varying health anxiety (35% with clinical-level health anxiety). Participants were randomised to experiential/ruminative self-focus conditions, and then they completed the Self-Defining Memory Task. Responses were coded for valence and illness-relatedness. Results indicated that rumination led participants to retrieve more illness-related self-defining memories, while higher health anxiety scores were associated with more negative, but not more illness-focused memories. Ruminative thinking appears to activate health concerns, and may play a role in maintaining ongoing health anxiety.     

Excessive self-focused attention and defensiveness among psychiatric patients: a vicious cycle?

The contribution of defensive coping to the phenomenon of excessive self-focused attention was studied in 20 depressed or anxious psychiatric outpatients comprising the negative affect group, 20 patients with psychotic disorders, and a control group of 21 patients of an orthopaedic clinic. Self-focused attention was assessed using the Self-reflectiveness and Internal State Awareness subfactors of the Private Self-consciousness Scale. In accordance with other research on self-focused attention, the negative affect group obtained higher scores on the Self-reflectiveness scale than the control group (t39=2.40, p<.03). To examine the relationship between self-focus and defensiveness, Weinberger, Schwartz, and Davidson's approach was employed, using median splits of short forms of the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale and the Marlowe-Crowne scale to differentiate among four groups of subjects. The highest self-reflectiveness was found for those participants who were high in both defensiveness and anxiety. This group scored higher than the nondefensive high anxious group (t30= -2.31, p<.03). The heightened self-focused attention might result from automatically instigated states of self-focused attention and paradoxical effects of defensive efforts to avoid self-focus.     

Self-focused attention and negative affect: a meta-analysis

This meta-analysis synthesized 226 effect sizes reflecting the relation between self-focused attention and negative affect (depression, anxiety, negative mood). The results demonstrate the multifaceted nature of self-focused attention and elucidate major controversies in the field. Overall, self-focus was associated with negative affect. Several moderators qualified this relationship. Self-focus and negative affect were more strongly related in clinical and female-dominated samples. Rumination yielded stronger effect sizes than nonruminative self-focus. Self-focus on positive self-aspects and following a positive event were related to lower negative affect. Most important, an interaction between foci of self-attention and form of negative affect was found: Private self-focus was more strongly associated with depression and generalized anxiety, whereas public self-focus was more strongly associated with social anxiety.     

自我关注与社交焦虑：负面评价恐惧的中介与关系型自我构念的调节

为明确自我关注对社交焦虑的影响机制,建构了一个有调节的中介模型,考察负面评价恐惧、关系型自我构念的作用以及性别差异。选取446名大学生进行问卷调查。结果表明：（1）自我关注部分通过负面评价恐惧的中介作用间接预测社交焦虑;（2）关系型自我构念调节中介模型的前半路径：在高关系型自我构念下,自我关注可以显著预测负面评价恐惧;在低关系型自我构念下,该预测作用不显著;（3）有调节的中介模型存在性别差异：在女生群体中,负面评价恐惧的中介效应大于男生群体,且关系型自我构念的调节作用显著;而在男生群体中,该调节效应不显著。     

Rumination and overgeneral memory in depression: effects of self-focus and analytic thinking

Previous research has shown that, compared with a rumination induction, a brief distraction procedure reduces overgeneral autobiographical memory in depression. The authors investigated whether this effect depends on reductions in analytic thinking or reductions in self-focus. Focus of attention (high vs. low self-focus) and thinking style (high vs. low analytical thinking) were independently manipulated in depressed patients in a 2 x 2 design. Autobiographical recall was measured pre- and postmanipulation. Thinking style significantly affected overgeneral memory, whereas focus of attention significantly affected despondent mood. Reducing analytical self-focus reduced overgeneral memory, suggesting that high levels of naturally occurring ruminative analytic thinking may be important in the maintenance of overgeneral memory. Overgeneral memory in depression may be associated with chronic ruminative attempts to make sense of current or past difficulties.     

Ruminative and mindful self-focused processing modes and their impact on problem solving in dysphoric individuals

A mindful experiential rather than an analytical ruminative mode of information processing is beneficial in depression. However studies have not taken into account people’s trait mindfulness or trait rumination. This study aimed to examine the effects of state and trait analytical rumination and experiential mindfulness on affect and social problem solving (SPS). Participants filled in the trait mindfulness and trait rumination questionnaires. After mood induction, dysphoric participants with and without a history of depression were assessed for SPS and affect before and after induction of mindful (experiential) or ruminative (analytic) processing modes. Results showed trait mindfulness was negatively correlated with the BDI and trait rumination was positively correlated with the BDI. There was no significant difference between groups after the induced experiential mindful or analytical ruminative processing modes. However, participants who scored high on trait rumination showed significant improvement in SPS after induced mindfulness processing. No such effect was found on trait mindfulness. These findings suggest a useful way to prevent high trait ruminators from developing depressive symptoms or depression. Experiential mindful processing may help reduce the risk of developing depressive symptoms by increasing social problem solving ability in those with low mood and high levels of trait rumination.     

Rumination, distraction, and mindful self-focus in depressed patients

Rumination has been proposed as a cognitive risk factor for the onset and maintenance of depression. In parallel, mindfulness interventions have shown to reduce the risk for recurrence of depressive episodes. This study aimed to investigate effects of short periods of induced rumination, distraction, and mindful self-focus on sad mood in depressed patients and to assess possible moderator effects of habitual variables on respective mood changes. Seventy-six depressed patients 3.5 years after discharge from inpatient treatment were subjected to negative mood induction and subsequently randomly assigned to a rumination, distraction, or mindful self-focus induction. Habitual aspects of rumination, distraction, and mindfulness were assessed by questionnaires. Compared to rumination, the induction of a mindful self-focus and of distraction showed clear beneficial effects on the course of negative mood. While habitual distraction predicted better mood outcomes across all conditions, patients high in habitual mindfulness tended to show stronger negative mood reduction specifically after the induction of a mindful self-focus. This study indicates that - similar to distraction - an experimentally induced mindful self-focus is able to reduce negative mood in depressed patients. Implications regarding possible subgroups of patients who might particularly benefit from mindfulness-based interventions are discussed.     

Difficulties in disengaging attentional resources from self-generated thoughts moderate the link between dysphoria and maladaptive self-referential thinking

Negative emotions increase self-focused attention, a core feature of depression and anxiety-related disorders. However, the cognitive mechanisms associated with the tendency to self-focus—and, conversely, with the ability to voluntarily disengage attentional resources from the self and direct them towards the external environment—remain poorly understood. Thus, this study aimed to examine whether a specific cognitive control mechanism that directs attention between self-generated thoughts and external information might moderate the relationship between dysphoria and maladaptive self-referential thinking. Results showed that dysphoria increases the frequency of rumination, self-blame, and catastrophising, especially for participants who have more difficulty in switching from self-generated thoughts to information provided by the environment. These results shed new light on the cognitive mechanisms underlying maladaptive self-referential thinking associated with dysphoria. More specifically, this specific cognitive mechanism might play a key role in the maintenance or amplification of a depressed mood.     

The Effects of Social Anxiety and State Anxiety on Visual Attention: Testing the Vigilance–Avoidance Hypothesis

A growing theoretical and research literature suggests that trait and state social anxiety can predict attentional patterns in the presence of emotional stimuli. The current study adds to this literature by examining the effects of state anxiety on visual attention and testing the vigilance–avoidance hypothesis, using a method of continuous visual attentional assessment. Participants were 91 undergraduate college students with high or low trait fear of negative evaluation (FNE), a core aspect of social anxiety, who were randomly assigned to either a high or low state anxiety condition. Participants engaged in a free view task in which pairs of emotional facial stimuli were presented and eye movements were continuously monitored. Overall, participants with high FNE avoided angry stimuli and participants with high state anxiety attended to positive stimuli. Participants with high state anxiety and high FNE were avoidant of angry faces, whereas participants with low state and low FNE exhibited a bias toward angry faces. The study provided partial support for the vigilance–avoidance hypothesis. The findings add to the mixed results in the literature that suggest that both positive and negative emotional stimuli may be important in understanding the complex attention patterns associated with social anxiety. Clinical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Effects of dispositional self-focus,appraisal and attention instructions on responses to a threatening stimulus

Abstract

Two studies are reported which explored the relationship between self-focused attention and anxiety. The first study tested the hypotheses that self-focused attention is associated with anxiety in threatening situations and that the relationship is mediated by negative appraisal processes. Study 1 showed no significant interaction between self-focus and negative appraisal on state-anxiety. However, self-focus was associated with increments in state-anxiety, high levels of worry and somatic symptom reports in a threatening situation. The relationship between self-focus and state-anxiety was mediated by somatic symptoms. Study 2 used cognitive and somatic self-attention instructions and external focus instructions to verify the hypothesis that self-focus on somatic arousal is associated with anxiety. It is concluded that specific self-focusing tendencies are associated with the elicitation and exacerbation of anxiety.