Ruminative Inertia,Emotion Regulation,and Depression: A Daily-Diary Study

Emotional suppression and cognitive reappraisal are emotion regulation strategies that have been linked to the severity of depression. Recent research has shown that greater ruminative inertia (i.e., rumination that is more resistant to change across time) is also associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms in clinical samples. However, it is unknown how tendencies to use suppression or reappraisal might be related to the inertia of rumination from day to day. After completing a baseline assessment of depressive symptoms and trait emotional suppression and cognitive reappraisal use, undergraduates (n = 94) completed daily-diary questionnaires assessing rumination for two weeks. Both higher depressive symptoms and greater tendencies to use suppression predicted stronger ruminative inertia, while tendencies to use reappraisal were unrelated to ruminative inertia. These results suggest that maladaptive emotion regulation strategies may contribute to a pattern of rumination that is more resistant to change over time. They also provide the first evidence that ruminative inertia is positively associated with depressive symptoms in a nonclinical sample.     

Flexibility is not always adaptive: Affective flexibility and inflexibility predict rumination use in everyday life

The present study examined whether cognitive flexibility in the processing of emotional material (i.e., affective flexibility) predicts the use of rumination in response to negative events in daily life. One hundred fifty-seven undergraduate participants completed daily diaries for six consecutive days. Affective flexibility was measured with a novel task-switching paradigm using emotional pictures. Results show that affective inflexibility when switching away from processing the emotional meaning of negative material was associated with increased use of rumination in daily life. In contrast, affective inflexibility when switching away from processing the emotional meaning of positive material was related to decreased use of rumination. Importantly, affective flexibility predicted use of rumination beyond non-affective measures of executive functioning. This is the first study to show that inflexibility is not uniformly associated with increased rumination but that inflexibility in the processing of positive material can predict lower levels of rumination.     

Obsessive-Compulsive and Depressive Symptoms: The Role of Depressive Cognitive Styles

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) commonly co-occurs with depression, resulting in heightened severity and poorer treatment response. Research on the associations between specific obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCS) and depressive symptoms has utilized measures that have not fully considered the relationship across OCS dimensions. Little is known about which factors explain the overlap between OCS and depressive symptoms. OCS and depressive symptoms may be related via depressive cognitive styles, such as rumination or dampening (i.e., down-regulating positive emotions). We evaluated the associations of OCS dimensions with depressive symptoms and cognitive styles. We also examined the indirect effects of rumination and dampening in the relationship between OCS and depressive symptoms. Participants (N = 250) completed questionnaires online. Greater depressive symptoms, rumination, and dampening were associated with greater levels of all OCS dimensions. Path analysis was utilized to examine a model including the direct effect of depressive symptoms on overall OCS and two indirect effects (through rumination and dampening). There was a significant indirect effect of depressive cognitive styles on the relationship between OCS and depressive symptoms, through rumination and dampening. Replication in a clinical sample and experimental manipulations may bear important implications for targeting depressive cognitive styles in treatments for OCD and depression.     

Prediction of symptoms of emotional distress by mood regulation expectancies and affective traits

Three studies examined negative mood regulation expectancies (NMRE) and affective traits as independent predictors of self‐reported symptoms of emotional distress. NMRE represent individuals' beliefs that they can alleviate unpleasant emotional states. Stronger NMRE are associated with more adaptive coping, more positive cognition during negative moods, more effective responses under stress and less emotional distress. Affective traits represent long‐term tendencies toward particular affective experiences; they confer risk for specific symptoms of emotional distress. In Study 1, NMRE, trait negative affect (TNA) and trait positive affect (TPA) were all independently associated with depression among students and staff of a German university. In Study 2, in prospective analyses among U.S. college students traits exhibited hypothesised relationships with anxiety and depressive symptoms, and NMRE uniquely predicted anhedonic depression. Study 3 revealed independent prediction of change in symptoms over time by NMRE among U.S. college students, whereas traits were not associated with change in distress, anxiety and depression symptoms. Results suggest independent roles for NMRE and traits in the development of depression and anxiety symptoms and highlight the importance of NMRE as a potential target of therapeutic intervention in the process of symptom change.     

Emotional inertia contributes to depressive symptoms beyond perseverative thinking

The autocorrelation or inertia of negative affect reflects how much negative emotions carry over from moment to moment and has been associated with increased depressive symptoms. In this study, we posed three challenges to this association by examining: (1) whether emotional inertia is relevant for depressive symptoms when assessed on a longer timescale than usual; (2) whether inertia is uniquely related to depressive symptoms after controlling for perseverative thoughts; and (3) whether inertia is related to depressive symptoms over and above the within-person association between affect and perseverative thoughts. Participants (N = 101) provided ratings of affect and perseverative thoughts for 100 days; depressive symptoms were reported before and after the study, and again after 2.5 years. Day-to-day emotional inertia was related to depressive symptoms over and above trait and state perseverative thoughts. Moreover, inertia predicted depressive symptoms when adjusting for its association with perseverative thoughts. These findings establish the relevance of emotional inertia in depressive symptoms independent of perseverative thoughts.     

Distinguishing between level and impact of rumination as predictors of depressive symptoms: An experience sampling study

Rumination—repetitively thinking about one's emotional state, its causes and consequences—exacerbates negative mood and plays an important role in the aetiology and maintenance of depression. Yet, it is unclear whether increased vulnerability to depression is associated with simply how much a person ruminates, or the short-term impact rumination has on a person's negative mood. In the current study, we distinguish between the level versus the impact of rumination, and we examine how each uniquely predicts changes in depressive symptoms over time in an undergraduate sample. Using experience sampling, we assessed students’ (N = 101) subjective experiences of positive and negative affect and their use of rumination and distraction in daily life for seven days. Participants also reported their depressive symptoms before and after the experience sampling. Increases in depressive symptoms over the week were predicted by how much people ruminated, but not by its impact on negative mood.     

Testing the cognitive catalyst model of depression: does rumination amplify the impact of cognitive diatheses in response to stress?

Recent studies have found that rumination functions as a catalyst of cognitive vulnerability to depression. Specifically, these studies have reported synergistic effects between rumination and negative cognitive content (beliefs and attitudes), such that rumination amplifies the association between negative cognitive content and depression (Ciesla & Roberts, 2002, 2007; Robinson & Alloy, 2003). The current study extended this work by testing whether cognitive vulnerability involving the combination of negative cognitive content and rumination increases the impact of stress on the course of depressive symptoms. One hundred ninety-one college students with elevated depressive symptoms participated in a two-wave longitudinal study. Results indicate that the maintenance of depressive symptoms was predicted by the three-way interaction of negative cognitive content, rumination, and stressful life events. More specifically, students who endorsed both maladaptive cognitive content and a tendency to ruminate were particularly vulnerable to the deleterious impact of life stress.     

A meta‐mood model of rumination and depression: Preliminary test in a non‐clinical population

Depressive rumination and trait meta‐mood (emotional attention, emotional clarity and emotional repair) have been suggested as vulnerability factors leading to depression, but less is known about the associations among them. In this study, we examined the relationships between trait meta‐mood, rumination and depressive symptomatology. Using structural equation analysis in a large sample of a non‐clinical population we found a preliminary test of the role of trait meta‐mood dimensions in rumination and depressive symptomatology. Results indicated that attention to feelings has two pathways in its relation with rumination and depressive mood. On the one hand, emotional attention was associated with emotional clarity, and emotional clarity with emotional repair, which was related to lower depressive symptomatology, in part, by reducing rumination. On the other hand, emotional attention was directly associated with ruminative thoughts which, in turn, were related to higher depressive mood. Findings are discussed in terms of the implications of beliefs about emotions in the treatment of depression.     

Rumination mediates the relationship between impaired cognitive control for emotional information and depressive symptoms: A prospective study in remitted depressed adults

Impaired cognitive control may be an important vulnerability factor for depression. Moreover, impairments in cognitive control have been proposed as a crucial process underlying ruminative thinking. The present study investigates the influence of impaired cognitive control for emotional information on rumination and depressive symptoms in a prospective design with a 1 year follow up in a clinical sample. Thirty remitted depressed adults completed the Internal Shift Task (IST), a measure of cognitive control of emotional information, at baseline. Moreover, questionnaires measuring rumination (RRS) and depressive symptoms (BDI-II) were administered. One year later participants were contacted again and asked to complete the BDI-II and RRS. Mediation analyses showed a significant influence of impaired cognitive control for emotional information at baseline on depressive symptoms one year later, which was fully mediated by rumination. These findings underscore the importance of cognitive control abilities as a process underlying rumination and as a vulnerability factor for depression. They can stimulate translational research to improve the effectiveness of interventions that aim to decrease vulnerability by targeting cognitive control.     

Genetic and environmental influences on rumination and its covariation with depression

This study examined the extent to which rumination and depression share genetic and environmental influences in a community sample of adult twins (N = 663). Twins completed multiple rumination questionnaires, a depressive symptoms questionnaire and a diagnostic interview. Rumination was moderately heritable (h² = .37–.41 for the latent variable) and substantially influenced by nonshared environmental factors, and these results were consistent across different measures. Nonshared environmental influences on rumination were larger for women than men. Depressive symptoms and diagnosis were influenced by genetic and nonshared environmental factors (h² = .30–.45). The genetic correlations between rumination and depression were moderate to large (rA = .40–.82), suggesting that a substantial proportion of the genetic influences on rumination overlap with those on depression. Results were similar when examining self-reported depressive symptoms and interview-based diagnosis of major depressive disorder. These results highlight the importance of rumination in the integration of cognitive and genetic models of depression risk.     

A Kid-Friendly Tool to Assess Rumination in Children and Early Adolescents: Relationships with Mother Psychopathology and Family Functioning

The early identification of ruminative processes in children and early adolescents is particularly important to prevent the development of a stable ruminative style in later stages of development. The present study first aimed at validating a child-friendly tool, Kid Rumination Interview (KRI), to be used in a sample aged 7–12 years (n?=?100; 50% females). Second, we hypothesized that maternal depression, family functioning and participants’ emotion regulation skills would be associated with children’ levels of rumination. Factor analysis on KRI scores yielded two main factors: personal life-related rumination and school-related rumination. Older and female participants showed higher tendencies to ruminate about school issues compared to their younger and male counterparts. A low-to-moderate correlation emerged between school-related rumination and child/early adolescent’s emotion regulation capacities. Mothers’ depressive rumination and mothers’ depressive symptoms were positively associated with children/early adolescents’ rumination about personal life and rumination about school issues. Conversely, an adequate and positive family functioning was negatively correlated with both school-related rumination and rumination about personal life. Hierarchical regression analyses pointed to a crucial role of maternal rumination and familiar rigidity in both types of rumination. Personal life-related rumination was also specifically predicted by maternal depression and family enmeshment, whereas school-related rumination was significantly associated with children/early adolescents’ emotional control and gender. Overall, the KRI appears as a promising tool to assess rumination in children/early adolescents. Results suggests partially different pathways to specific forms of ruminative thoughts.     

En Route to Depression: Self‐Esteem Discrepancies and Habitual Rumination

Dual‐process models of cognitive vulnerability to depression suggest that some individuals possess discrepant implicit and explicit self‐views, such as high explicit and low implicit self‐esteem (fragile self‐esteem) or low explicit and high implicit self‐esteem (damaged self‐esteem). This study investigated whether individuals with discrepant self‐esteem may employ depressive rumination in an effort to reduce discrepancy‐related dissonance, and whether the relationship between self‐esteem discrepancy and future depressive symptoms varies as a function of rumination tendencies. Hierarchical regressions examined whether self‐esteem discrepancy was associated with rumination in an Australian undergraduate sample at Time 1 (N = 306; M_age = 29.9), and whether rumination tendencies moderated the relationship between self‐esteem discrepancy and depressive symptoms assessed 3 months later (n = 160). Damaged self‐esteem was associated with rumination at Time 1. As hypothesized, rumination moderated the relationship between self‐esteem discrepancy and depressive symptoms at Time 2, where fragile self‐esteem and high rumination tendencies at Time 1 predicted the highest levels of subsequent dysphoria. Results are consistent with dual‐process propositions that (a) explicit self‐regulation strategies may be triggered when explicit and implicit self‐beliefs are incongruent, and (b) rumination may increase the likelihood of depression by expending cognitive resources and/or amplifying negative implicit biases.     

Rumination as a transdiagnostic factor in depression and anxiety

The high rate of comorbidity among mental disorders has driven a search for factors associated with the development of multiple types of psychopathology, referred to as transdiagnostic factors. Rumination is involved in the etiology and maintenance of major depression, and recent evidence implicates rumination in the development of anxiety. The extent to which rumination is a transdiagnostic factor that accounts for the co-occurrence of symptoms of depression and anxiety, however, has not previously been examined. We investigated whether rumination explained the concurrent and prospective associations between symptoms of depression and anxiety in two longitudinal studies: one of adolescents (N = 1065) and one of adults (N = 1317). Rumination was a full mediator of the concurrent association between symptoms of depression and anxiety in adolescents (z = 6.7, p < .001) and was a partial mediator of this association in adults (z = 5.6, p < .001). In prospective analyses in the adolescent sample, baseline depressive symptoms predicted increases in anxiety, and rumination fully mediated this association (z = 5.26, p < .001). In adults, baseline depression predicted increases in anxiety and baseline anxiety predicted increases in depression; rumination fully mediated both of these associations (z = 2.35, p = .019 and z = 5.10, p < .001, respectively). These findings highlight the importance of targeting rumination in transdiagnostic treatment approaches for emotional disorders.     

An Exploration of Family Problem-Solving and Affective Involvement as Moderators Between Disease Severity and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescents with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Little is known about how family functioning relates to psychosocial functioning of youth with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The study aim was to examine family problem solving and affective involvement as moderators between adolescent disease severity and depressive symptoms. Participants were 122 adolescents with IBD and their parents. Measures included self-reported and parent-reported adolescent depressive symptoms, parent-reported family functioning, and physician-completed measures of disease severity. Disease severity was a significant predictor of adolescent-reported depressive symptoms, but not parent-reported adolescent depressive symptoms. Family affective involvement significantly predicted parent-reported adolescent depressive symptoms, while family problem-solving significantly predicted adolescent self-report of depressive symptoms. Neither affective involvement nor problem-solving served as moderators. Family affective involvement may play an important role in adolescent emotional functioning but may not moderate the effect of disease severity on depressive symptoms. Research should continue to examine effects of family functioning on youth emotional functioning and include a sample with a wider range of disease severity to determine if interventions aimed to enhance family functioning are warranted.     

Rumination and worrying as possible mediators in the relation between neuroticism and symptoms of depression and anxiety in clinically depressed individuals

Rumination and worrying are considered possible mediating variables that may explain the relation between neuroticism and symptoms of depression and anxiety. The current study sought to examine the mediational effects of rumination and worry in the relationships between neuroticism and symptoms of depression and anxiety in a sample of clinically depressed individuals (N = 198). All patients completed a battery of questionnaires including measures of neuroticism, rumination, worrying, depression, and anxiety. Results showed that in subsequent analyses, rumination and worrying both mediated the relation between neuroticism and depression and anxiety. When rumination and worrying were simultaneously entered in the mediation analysis, only rumination was found to mediate the relation between neuroticism and symptoms of anxiety and depression. Two components of rumination (i.e., brooding and reflection) were also analyzed in the mediational analysis. Both reflection and brooding were significant mediators with respect to depressive symptoms, whereas brooding was the only significant mediator in relation to anxiety symptoms. The results are discussed in the light of current theories, previous research, and recent treatment developments. Clinical implications and suggestions for future research are provided.     

Repetitive Negative Thinking Predicts Depressed Mood at 3-Year Follow-up in Students

Repetitive negative thinking (RNT; e.g., rumination and worry) is a key-factor involved in the maintenance of emotional problems like depression and anxiety. Recently, the Perseverative Thinking Questionnaire (PTQ) was developed as a content-independent measure of RNT. The current study investigated the validity of this new measure in predicting depressive symptoms prospectively. Eighty-one students completed measures of depressive symptoms, depressive rumination and repetitive negative thinking. Depressive symptoms were re-assessed 3?years later (40?months follow-up). Results showed that repetitive negative thinking as measured by the PTQ predicts depressive symptoms at follow-up, even when taking into account baseline depressive symptoms and rumination. The results suggest that the PTQ has good (prospective) predictive validity for depressed mood and reconfirm RNT’s role in the course of emotional complaints.     

Cognitive Vulnerability to Emotional Symptoms: Reconsidering the Role of Worry and Rumination

The present study explored the pathways whereby cognitive variables (worry, rumination) may explain the relation between neuroticism and emotional symptoms in a community sample of adults (N?=?499). All participants completed a battery of questionnaires including measures of neuroticism, worry, rumination, anxiety and depression. Multiple mediation and moderated mediation analyses were used. Worry was a common pathway explaining the effect of neuroticism on both anxiety and depressive symptoms. The brooding subtype of rumination significantly mediated the relation between neuroticism and anxiety symptoms, but the reflection subtype did not have a mediating effect. Although worry by itself mediated the association between neuroticism and anxiety symptoms, it required a certain level of brooding to exert its mediating effect on the relation between neuroticism and depressive symptoms. The results are discussed in light of previous research and recent developments in treatment. Clinical implications and suggestions for future research are also discussed.     

Longitudinal Study of Life Events,Well-Being,Emotional Regulation and Depressive Symptomatology

Etiological research regarding adolescent depression is relatively recent and longitudinal studies are needed to explicate the mechanisms by which risk and protective factors impact the development of depression. This investigation evaluated the effects of time 1 predictors (e.g., depressive symptoms, life events, subjective well-being, and emotion regulation strategies) on depressive symptoms assessed at time 2 (1 year later). The sample comprised 182 Portuguese adolescents, aged 12–16. Time 1 depressive symptoms and psychological well-being were significant predictors of time 2 depressive symptoms. Time 1 rumination predicted time 2 depressive symptoms, but time 2 brooding mediated this effect. Time 1 life events did not predict time 2 depressive symptomatology. This study identified several factors that seem to play an important role in the development of depressive symptomatology. Previous depressive symptomatology and well-being had a significant effect in this process and the relationship between rumination in time 1 and depressive symptoms at time 2 (1 year later) was fully mediated by brooding at time 2. Given these results, implications for prevention and treatment of depression include addressing risk factors like early depressive symptoms, rumination and brooding, and increasing the protective effect of psychological well-being.     

Anxiety sensitivity cognitive concerns drive the relation between anxiety sensitivity and symptoms of depression

Depression is typically treated as a homogeneous construct despite evidence for distinct cognitive, affective, and somatic symptom dimensions. Anxiety sensitivity (AS; the fear of consequences of anxiety symptoms) is a cognitive risk factor implicated in the development of depressive symptoms. However, it is unclear how lower order AS dimensions (i.e. physical, cognitive, and social concerns) relate to depressive symptom factors. Confirmatory factor analysis, followed by structural equation modeling, were conducted to examine the factor structure of depression and to then examine the relations between these factors and the lower order factors of AS. This study was conducted in a sample of 374 adults (M age = 35.5, 54.3% female) with elevated levels of psychopathology (89.2% meeting criteria for at least one DSM-5 diagnosis, 25.6% primary depressive disorder). In this study a two-factor model of depression, composed of Cognitive and Affective/Somatic factors, was superior to one- and three-factor solutions. AS cognitive concerns were related to both cognitive and affective/somatic symptoms of depression. Neither of the other AS dimensions was related to depression symptom dimensions. These findings provide a better understanding of the relations between AS and depression symptoms.     

When Being Discrepant from One's Ideal or Ought Selves Hurts: The Moderating Role of Neuroticism

Self‐discrepancy theory posits that people experience emotional consequences when they perceive discrepancies between their actual and possible selves. However, the extent to which people react emotionally to these self‐discrepancies (i.e. ideal, ought and undesired) may be a function of individual differences in neuroticism. Across both experimental (Study 1; N = 155) and correlational designs (Study 2; N = 139) involving college students, the authors demonstrated that neuroticism moderated the discrepancy–emotion associations such that high‐neuroticism individuals showed elevated depression and anxiety symptoms when their self‐discrepancies were activated. The heightened symptoms were maintained over time. Negative repetitive thoughts (i.e. rumination and worry) were examined as potential mediating mechanisms between the discrepancy × neuroticism interaction and symptoms. Partial support was obtained in that rumination mediated between undesired discrepancy × neuroticism interaction and anxious/depressive symptoms. Implications and possible theoretical extensions for self‐discrepancy theory are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.