Rumination is independently associated with poor psychological health: Comparing emotion regulation strategies

Objective: Emotion regulation (ER) strategies are related to psychological health, with most work examining reappraisal and suppression. Yet, emerging findings suggest that rumination may have stronger relationships with psychological health, namely depression, than other ER strategies. This paper replicated and extended this work by testing whether rumination was independently associated with a range of poor psychological health risk indicators and outcomes. In addition, it explored whether the reason why rumination is so deleterious to health is because it underlies the stress–health relationship.

Design: Participants (n = 218) completed measures online.

Main outcome measures: Surveys assessed ER strategies (reappraisal, suppression, proactive coping, emotion support seeking, and rumination), health risk indicators (hostility, optimism, self-esteem), health outcomes (depression, poor sleep quality, anxiety) and perceived chronic stress.

Results: Multivariate regression analyses revealed rumination as the only ER strategy with a consistent independent effect on all the health risk indicators and outcomes. Bootstrapping analyses revealed indirect effects of perceived chronic stress on all the health variables via rumination.

Conclusion: Rumination had a deleterious relationship with psychological health, perhaps because rumination underlies the relationship between stress and psychological health. Results have implications for interventions, particularly emphasizing the need to target ruminative thinking after stressful experiences.     

Beliefs about emotion: implications for avoidance-based emotion regulation and psychological health

People’s beliefs about their ability to control their emotions predict a range of important psychological outcomes. It is not clear, however, whether these beliefs are playing a causal role, and if so, why this might be. In the current research, we tested whether avoidance-based emotion regulation explains the link between beliefs and psychological outcomes. In Study 1 (N?=?112), a perceived lack of control over emotions predicted poorer psychological health outcomes (increased self-reported avoidance, lower well-being, and higher levels of clinical symptoms), and avoidance strategies indirectly explained these links between emotion beliefs and psychological health. In Study 2 (N?=?101), we experimentally manipulated participants’ emotion beliefs by leading participants to believe that they struggled (low regulatory self-efficacy) or did not struggle (high regulatory self-efficacy) with controlling their emotions. Participants in the low regulatory self-efficacy condition reported increased intentions to engage in avoidance strategies over the next month and were more likely to avoid seeking psychological help. When asked if they would participate in follow-up studies, these participants were also more likely to display avoidance-based emotion regulation. These findings provide initial evidence for the causal role of emotion beliefs in avoidance-based emotion regulation, and document their impact on psychological health-related outcomes.     

Behavioral strategies for emotion regulation in toddlers: associations with maternal involvement and emotional expressions

Ninety-four mothers and their 18- or 24-month-old children participated in four laboratory episodes designed to elicit fear or anger. Mothers’ behavior was constrained for the first part of each episode; mothers were then instructed to help their children. Toddlers’ behavioral strategies differed as a function of maternal involvement and as a function of the emotion-eliciting context. Only some of the behavioral strategies assumed to minimize expressions of distress truly did so; other behaviors showed maintenance effects on fear and anger expressions. The different pattern of results for the fear and frustration episodes highlights the importance of examining behavioral strategies across contexts designed to elicit different emotions.     

The role of mindfulness and compassion in early adults' subsequent mental health,coping and compliance with health guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic: A prospective longitudinal study

The present study explored prospective links between trait mindfulness and compassion on subsequent coping and compliance with Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines and indirect effects via well-being and internalized distress during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study included N = 736 US college students who participated in a three-wave longitudinal study across a single academic year. The first two assessment waves took place in 2018 and 2019, respectively, while the third wave took place in May 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants completed self-report measures of trait mindfulness, compassion, well-being, internalized distress, coping, and compliance with CDC health guidelines. Results of a series of autoregressive, cross-lagged panel models revealed that trait mindfulness was associated with better coping via indirect effects of greater well-being and lower internalized distress. Greater compassion was linked with greater adherence to CDC guidelines. Findings suggest that trait mindfulness and compassion may play a role in college students' coping and compliance during the pandemic.     

Defensive pessimism and precautionary action during the COVID pandemic

The purpose of this research was to test, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the hypothesis that individuals who use defensive pessimism as a strategy to manage anxiety are likely to act to prevent or mitigate negative outcomes. Across three crowd-sourced samples (Total N = 1416), defensive pessimism was correlated with self-reports of more precautionary behavior (Studies 1, 2, & 3) and fewer COVID-positive results (Study 3).     

Well-being during the coronavirus pandemic: The effect of big five personality and COVID-19 beliefs and behaviors

This study examined the relationship between personality traits, COVID-specific beliefs and behaviors, and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. In July 2020, at the onset of a second major lockdown, Australian adults (n = 1453) completed measures of Big Five personality, COVID beliefs and behaviors (i.e., belief in a rapid recovery, perceived risk, compliance, change in exercise, and change in interpersonal conflict), subjective well-being and COVID-specific well-being. Personality correlates of COVID-specific well-being differed from those with general life satisfaction. The benefits of conscientiousness were elevated whereas the benefits of extraversion and agreeableness were reduced. Neuroticism was related to greater perceived risk from the pandemic, elevated interpersonal conflict during the pandemic, and more pessimistic views about the rate at which society would recover from the pandemic. In contrast, conscientiousness was notably related to greater compliance with directions from public health authorities. While regression models showed that general well-being was largely explained by personality, COVID factors provided incremental prediction, and this was greatest when predicting COVID-specific well-being and lowest for global evaluations of life satisfaction. The observed prediction by beliefs and behaviors on well-being beyond personality, provides potential opportunities for targeted interventions to support the management of future novel stressors.     

Social determinants of health,prenatal maternal stress,and earlier birth during the COVID-19 pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, pregnant women, especially those from socioeconomically disadvantaged and marginalized groups, experienced unprecedented stress. Prenatal stress and social determinants of health (SDoH) such as lower education and lack of a relationship partner are known to contribute to earlier birth. However, whether SDoH and stress independently contribute or whether the harmful impact of SDoH is mediated by stress is unknown. Moreover, the contributions of these factors has not been investigated in the context of a communal health crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic. To examine these processes, we used a longitudinal cohort of 2473 women pregnant during the COVID-19 pandemic who reported a live birth. We compared structural equation models predicting gestational age at birth from SDoH (race/ethnicity, education, financial security, health insurance, relationship status, and lifetime abuse) and from prenatal maternal stress related and unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic. Results indicate that the association of SDoH with earlier birth was partially mediated by prenatal stress. These findings help uncover mechanisms explaining health disparities in the U.S. and highlight the need to address both SDoH and the stress that these factors produce in under-resourced and marginalized communities.     

Implicit theories of mental health predict anxiety and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic in China: The mediating effect of coping styles

This research investigated how implicit theories of mental health (ITMH) influence people's experience of anxiety and depression symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Two thousand and 44 Chinese completed the study during an emergent outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Shaanxi, China. The results suggested that ITMH significantly influence people's experience of anxiety and depression symptoms. Both active and passive coping styles significantly mediated the relationship between ITMH and anxiety/depression, with active coping style as a stronger mediator than passive coping style. Implications of the current research for improving people's mental health during pandemics of infectious diseases and directions for future research are discussed.     

Coping with unpleasant group memberships in Japan and Germany: Cultural differences in disidentification,confrontation and emotion regulation

Disidentification, the psychological distancing from unpleasant group memberships, has mainly been studied in individualistic societies. We tested whether disidentification is a coping strategy to deal with conflicts in small and large groups, in Japan and Germany. Study 1 (N = 79) illustrates that Japanese recalled more unpleasant situations related to small than large groups. Study 2 (N = 198) confirms that Japanese, but not German students’ disidentification varied with group size and was stronger after small-group conflict. Study 3 (N = 132) shows that anger was related to disidentification in Japan but to confrontation in Germany. Study 4 (N = 335) shows that, after group conflict, Japanese felt relieved when imagining to disidentify, whereas Germans felt relieved when imagining to confront the source of conflict. Combining correlational and experimental designs with culture-sensitive situation sampling, we show that disidentification exists as a psychological construct across cultures, albeit serving different psychological functions.     

The unconscious pursuit of emotion regulation: Implications for psychological health

Because of the central involvement of emotion regulation in psychological health and the role that implicit (largely unconscious) processes appear to play in emotion regulation, implicit emotion-regulatory processes should play a vital role in psychological health. We hypothesised that implicitly valuing emotion regulation translates into better psychological health in individuals who use adaptive emotion-regulation strategies. A community sample of 222 individuals (56% women) who had recently experienced a stressful life event completed an implicit measure of emotion regulation valuing (ER-IAT) and reported on their habitual use of an important adaptive emotion-regulation strategy: cognitive reappraisal. We measured three domains of psychological health: well-being, depressive symptoms, and social adjustment. As hypothesised, individuals who implicitly valued emotion regulation exhibited greater levels of psychological health, but only when they were high in cognitive reappraisal use. These findings suggest that salutary effects of unconscious emotion-regulation processes depend on its interplay with conscious emotion-regulation processes.     

Sustained attention development during the toddlerhood to preschool period: associations with toddlers' emotion regulation strategies and maternal behaviour

The current study examined the role of maternal behaviour and toddlers' emotion regulation strategies in the development of children's sustained attention abilities. Participants for this study included 447 children (232 girls) obtained from three different cohorts participating in a larger ongoing longitudinal study. When the children were 2 years of age, mothers brought their children to the laboratory and were videotaped during several tasks designed to elicit emotion regulation and mother–child interaction. Sustained attention was also measured at the same visit via a laboratory task and in a subsequent visit when children were 4.5 years of age. Results indicated that toddlers' use of help‐seeking emotion regulation strategies was positively related to sustained attention, while avoidance behaviours and maternal behaviour characterized by high levels of overcontrolling/intrusiveness were negatively related to sustained attention at age 2. Significant interactions emerged such that high levels of maternal warmth/responsiveness buffered the negative associations between low use of distraction and high use of self‐comforting emotion regulation strategies and sustained attention at age 2. Maternal behaviour characterized by high levels of warmth/responsiveness also predicted greater growth in sustained attention from age 2 to 4.5. These findings are discussed in terms of how maternal behaviours and children's use of active versus passive emotion regulation strategies relate to sustained attention abilities. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Emotion regulation strategies in daily life: mindfulness,cognitive reappraisal and emotion suppression

Most empirical studies of emotion regulation have relied on retrospective trait measures, and have not examined the link between daily regulatory strategies and every day emotional well-being. We used a daily diary methodology with multilevel modelling data analyses (n = 187) to examine the influence of three emotion regulation strategies (mindfulness, cognitive reappraisal and emotion suppression) on the experience of daily negative and positive affect. Our results suggested that daily mindfulness was associated with lower negative and higher positive affect whereas the converse pattern was found for daily emotion suppression; cognitive reappraisal was related to daily positive, but not negative affect. When daily mindfulness, suppression and reappraisal were included in the same models, these strategies predicted unique variance in emotional well-being. Random slope analyses revealed substantial variability in the utility of these strategies. Indeed the presumably “adaptive” cognitive reappraisal strategy seemed to confer no benefit to the regulation of negative affect in approximately half the sample. Additional analyses revealed that age moderates the effect of cognitive reappraisal on daily negative affect: Higher use of reappraisal was associated with more negative affect for adolescents (aged 17 to 19) but became associated with less negative affect with increasing age. We interpret these results in line with a contextual view of emotion regulation where no strategy is inherently “good” or “bad”.     

Coping with COVID-19: The sociomaterial dimensions of living with pre-existing mental illness during the early stages of the coronavirus crisis

In this article, we use the case study method to detail the experiences of five participants who reported living with pre-existing mental illness during COVID-19. We adopted a sociomaterial analytical approach, seeking to identify how human and nonhuman agents came together to generate states of wellbeing or distress during this challenging period. As the case studies show, feelings of anxiety, fear and risk were generated from the following sociomaterial conditions: loss of face-to-face contact with friends and family members; concerns about hygiene and infecting others; financial stress; loss of regular paid employment or volunteering work; public spaces; and the behaviour of unknown others in public spaces. The agents and practices that emerged as most important for opening capacities for coping and maintaining wellness during lockdown included: the space of the home; contact with a small number of intimate others; online therapeutic care; practising self-care skills learnt from previous difficult times; helping and supporting others; engaging in leisure activities; and the companionship of pets. Contributing to an affirmative approach to more-than-human assemblages of health, distress and recovery, these findings demonstrate what bodies can do in times of crisis and the agents and practices that can generate capacities for coping.     

Mindfulness and emotion regulation: promoting well-being during the transition to college

Background and Objectives: Managing stress is very important for first-year college students adjusting to undergraduate life. Aspects of emotion regulation, including mindfulness and the ability to regulate distressing emotion adaptively, often correlate positively with well-being. However, little research has examined overlapping and/or distinct effects of these constructs in predicting changes in adjustment over a stressful transition. Thus, the present study examined the contributions of mindfulness and adaptive emotion regulation abilities in maintaining well-being during the transition to college. We further examined experience with mind–body practices, which may promote mindfulness and positive adjustment.

Design: Online surveys were administered to 158 undergraduates near the beginning and end of their first semester.

Methods: Near semester start and end, students reported levels of mindfulness, adaptive emotion regulation abilities, emotional and spiritual well-being, and experience with mind–body practices.

Results: Compared to mindfulness, adaptive emotion regulation abilities largely demonstrated stronger cross-sectional and longitudinal associations with well-being. However, mindfulness uniquely protected against changes in depression for students with greater emotion regulation difficulties. Over half of participants reported having tried mind–body practices, but just 1% reported current use.

Conclusions: Promoting mindfulness practices and adaptive emotion regulation abilities at the start of college may build resilience in undergraduate students.     

Risk perception and behavior: Pessimism,realism, and optimism about aids-related health behavior

Abstract

This study investigates the perceived risk of becoming infected with HIV for heterosexuals with multiple sexual partners, examines cognitive and motivational antecedents of biases in risk perception, and relates these biases to behavior. We obtained a moderate degree of optimism in a longitudinal study based on a sample of 535 visitors of a STD clinic. Further analyses—after classifying subjects as “pessimists”, “realists”, or “optimists”—revealed that pessimists were extremely pessimistic and optimists remarkably optimistic. Optimism increased with perceived control and decreased with prior experience, supporting a cognitive explanation of optimism. The data also provided some support for a motivational explanation: optimists who scored higher on a defensive coping style were more optimistic about their risks. Contrary to other findings, we found a positive relation between optimism and intentions to reduce risks. Furthermore, results revealed that optimists showed lower levels of subsequent behavioral risk. It was concluded that optimists were not unrealistically optimistic about their personal vulnerability. but rather that pessimists were unrealistically pessimistic. Previous behavior was found to be the best predictor of subsequent behavior. Although measures of perceived risk were also related to subsequent behavior, their predictive power was rather modest.     

Social connectedness,mindfulness, and coping as protective factors during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented psychological impact, revealing immense emotional disturbances among the general population. This study examined the extent to which social connectedness, dispositional mindfulness, and coping moderate symptoms of anxiety and depression in 1242 adults under the same government-issued COVID-19 stay-at-home mandate. Participants completed measures of anxiety, depression, dispositional mindfulness, social connectedness, and coping, and regression analyses were used to examine associations and interaction effects. Results indicated that social connectedness and dispositional mindfulness were associated with reduced symptoms. For individuals living with a partner, decreased mindfulness and avoidant coping were associated with anxious symptoms. In households with children, overutilization of approach coping served to increase symptoms of depression. Results indicate the importance of considering social connectedness, mindfulness, and coping in counseling to enhance factors serving to protect clients during a public health crisis. Implications for professional counselors and areas of future research are discussed.     

The effects of social belonging and kindness on stress and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal experiment

Because the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has introduced significant stressors to people's lives, more research on self-directed strategies to cope with pandemic-related stress is needed. In the current longitudinal experiment (N = 614), we investigated the emotional benefits of two self-directed strategies—belonging affirmation and recalling kindness—during the Delta (October 2021) and Omicron (February 2022) waves of the pandemic. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three activity conditions (belonging affirmation, recalling kindness, or control), which they performed weekly for 4 weeks. Contrary to our pre-registered hypothesis, belonging affirmation and recalling kindness did not promote greater well-being overall; however, belonging affirmation led to well-being improvements indirectly via increases in positive emotions. Furthermore, the benefits of belonging affirmation were moderated by pandemic wave. That is, during the Omicron wave, but not the Delta wave, belonging affirmation led to improved life satisfaction, positive emotions, and connectedness, decreased loneliness and negative emotions, and marginally reduced perceived stress and anxiety. These results provide preliminary evidence for the well-being benefits of belonging affirmation and suggest the importance of evaluating coping strategies throughout different stages of a long-term stressor.