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Recently, Feldman, Joorman, and Johnson (in press) proposed that differences in the ways individuals respond to positive affect (PA) might impact the length and intensity of PA episodes, perhaps leading to changes in long-term mental and physical health. Feldman et al. (in press) suggested that "positive rumination," repetitive positive self- and symptom-focused responses to positive mood, should enhance PA, whereas "dampening" responses should diminish PA. The Response to Positive Affect Scale (RPA; Feldman et al., in press) was created to measure these constructs. Preliminary research has found that measures of positive rumination and dampening help predict mania and depression symptoms. The current study examined the convergent and predictive criterion validity, and reliability of the constructs of positive rumination and dampening through a combination cross-sectional, experimental, and naturalistic follow-up design. Temple University undergraduates (Phase I N = 1,281, Phase II N = 181, Phase III N = 154) participated in a three-phase study. In Phase I, participants completed the RPA along with a series of positive and negative health and cognition measures. In Phase II, participants were randomly assigned to one of three mood induction groups (negative, neutral, or positive) and completed a series of affect reports over time. One month later, Phase II participants were asked to report on their affect, physical health, mental health, and intervening life events during Phase III. As expected, positive rumination and dampening demonstrated convergent and divergent validity. However, the predictive criterion validity results were mixed, with the constructs predicting some, but not all, responses to mood inductions. The naturalistic follow-up demonstrated that positive rumination interacted with positive life events to predict hypothesized changes in psychological health, but not physical health. The test-retest reliability of the RPA was not acceptable for a trait measure. These results suggest that positive rumination and dampening are important constructs involved in both mental health and illness. Future research should consider alternative strategies for measuring responses to PA, including more realistic experimental paradigms. / Psychology

Depression is a condition characterized by sadness and other symptoms, which are implicated in a persistent style of thinking referred to as depressive rumination. The analytical rumination hypothesis argues that depression is an adaptive response to complicated, personal problems, and that rumination involves an analysis of these problems. This analytical rumination has two stages: first, depressive symptoms promote causal analysis (i.e., considering why the problems happened). Causal analysis then leads to problem-solving analysis (i.e., finding ways to deal with problems), which in turn reduces depression. The empirical studies in this dissertation collectively test whether the nature of depressive thinking is consistent with the analytical rumination hypothesis. In Chapter 2, I investigated the temporal order of sadness and the stages of analytical rumination by asking participants to write about their personal problems. This writing paradigm promoted sadness and causal analysis, but not problem-solving analysis, suggesting that depressive symptoms coincide with causal thinking. In Chapter 3, I explored whether emotions during writing were related to analytical thinking by modifying the paradigm to isolate the impact of other factors (i.e., personal experience with the problem and its valence). These factors could not fully account for emotional changes during writing, suggesting that analytical thinking played a role. Analytical rumination is one of several theories of depressive thinking, so in Chapter 4, I conducted a joint factor analysis of four rumination questionnaires and compared the prevalence of the emerging factors. Factors reflecting causal thoughts and problem-solving were most frequently endorsed, even when they were measured in the presence of sadness induced by the writing paradigm in Chapter 5. Furthermore, associations between these factors and depressive symptoms were consistent with the stages of analytical rumination. Overall, my findings suggest that depressive thinking focuses on understanding and solving problems, and it may have functional implications for depression. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Depression is a mental health condition in part characterized by sadness and changes in thinking. One evolutionary perspective argues that depression is a response to complicated, personal problems, and that symptoms of depression, like sadness, help individuals think through their problems. According to this perspective, depressive thinking is analytical, and it involves causal thinking to identify why the problems happened and problem-solving to find potential solutions. In my dissertation, I examine whether individuals engage in causal thinking and problem-solving when they are sad or depressed. My experiments assess whether writing about personal problems promotes sadness and causal thinking, and they examine the impact of analytical thinking on changes in sadness during writing. Because the evolutionary perspective is one of several theories on depressive thinking, I also use a psychometric method to integrate these theories and to examine how causal thinking and problem-solving are linked with sadness and other depressive symptoms.

Previous research suggests that employees can experience different types of demands at work. Challenge demands are motivating and goal oriented, whereas hindrance demands are excessively difficult and / or goal irrelevant. Similarly, previous research indicates that employees may think about work in different ways. Affective rumination involves unproductive, emotionally negative work-related thoughts, whereas problem-solving pondering involves productive, unemotional work-related thoughts. I assess challenge and hindrance demands as potential antecedents to the facets of work-related rumination and indicators of employee recovery and well-being (exhaustion and vigor) in both within- and between-person analyses. I additionally consider the role of work schedule and assess my hypothesized model on a sample including both traditionally scheduled and shift workers. My final sample consisted of 92 full-time (80 traditionally scheduled, 12 shift) employees who were sent three surveys per day over a 28-day survey period. Using multilevel structural equation modeling, I found evidence that work-related rumination may operate as a mechanistic pathway linking work demands to recovery indicators. Additionally, evidence from this dissertation suggests that problem-solving pondering may be detrimental to employee recovery at the daily level, but that it may be beneficial to employee recovery at the between-person level. This dissertation contributes to scientific understanding of potential antecedents of the different types of rumination and suggests that hindrance demands, which are almost universally treated as detrimental to employee recovery, may have competing positive and negative relationships with employee recovery. / Doctor of Philosophy / Research suggests that the demands of a job can be thought of as motivating, attainable challenges or as useless or impassible hindrances. Research additionally suggests that when we think about work during non-work time, those thoughts can be problem focused and productive or emotionally driven and unproductive. This dissertation explores the relationships between these two types of work demands, these two types of work-related rumination, and indicators of employee recovery from work (exhaustion and vigor). Additionally, I consider whether work schedule (traditional 9:00-5:00 vs. shift work) changes the ways these variables relate to each other. In a sample of 92 full-time workers (80 traditional, 12 shift), I find evidence to suggest that these types of work demands do relate to work-related rumination. Additionally, these types of work demands have different patterns of relationships with exhaustion and vigor. By assessing this model both in terms of changes in relationships for a person day to day (within-person) and in terms of changes in relationships between different people on average (between-person), I find evidence for potentially competing beneficial and harmful consequences of hindrance demands on employee recovery.

Many individuals with emotional disorders such as anxiety and depression experience repetitive negative thinking (RNT), defined as recurrent, difficult-to-control negative thoughts. RNT is a transdiagnostic process that occurs across most emotional disorders and contributes to their onset and maintenance. To date, little is known about what specific treatment skills most effectively reduce RNT. The current study uses single-case experimental design to evaluate the relative effectiveness of two brief cognitive skills at reducing RNT: restructuring and defusion. Restructuring and defusion have been found equally effective at reducing the frequency of certain types of negative thoughts; however, existing group-based research designs potentially obscure important individual differences in their effectiveness. Furthermore, these skills have not been studied as treatments for RNT. Patients (N = 8) were recruited from a community outpatient clinic waitlist. All met criteria for at least one emotional disorder and reported elevated RNT. They completed four sessions of each treatment skill in a counterbalanced order after a two- or four-week assessment-only period. During the assessment period, they completed ecological momentary assessment (EMA) surveys capturing moment-to-moment changes in RNT, negative affect, and positive affect. It was hypothesized that restructuring and defusion would both reduce RNT, that they would each be associated with change on a specific corresponding mechanism, and that changes in RNT would precede changes in depression and anxiety symptoms. On average, restructuring and defusion were associated with a similar reduction in RNT, although there were clear differences in skill effectiveness across patients. Furthermore, there were individual differences in whether each skill was associated with change in the corresponding mechanism, suggesting that there may be some overlap in how these skills work. Additionally, although changes in RNT and symptoms were significantly correlated in the majority of the sample, changes in RNT did not temporally precede changes in symptoms for most patients. EMA results highlighted individual differences in associations between RNT, positive affect, and negative affect both within and across time points. Overall, this study points to the importance of idiographic research in extending our understanding of RNT and its treatment.