Les pensées répétitives négatives (PRN) sont considérées comme un des processus transdiagnostiques impliqués dans le développement, le maintien et la récurrence de plusieurs troubles psychologiques tels que les troubles de l'humeur, les troubles anxieux ou les addictions. Une des priorités dans les recherches actuelles sur les PRN est de déterminer quel processus contribue au développement et au maintien des PRN inadaptés. La littérature suggère que les déficits d’inhibition et de désengagement attentionnel sont deux facteurs potentiellement impliqués dans la récurrence des PRN. L’objectif de la présente thèse de doctorat était, premièrement de systématiser les recherches antérieures sur le lien entre les PRN et l’inhibition. Deuxièmement nous avons testé dans des études expérimentales comment l’induction des PRN affectait l’inhibition et le désengagement attentionnel.Le premier article expérimental présente une série d’études testant l’impact des PRN sur l’efficacité de l’inhibition. Le second article expérimental montre comment l’induction des PRN affecte le désengagement attentionnel. Une plus-value des études présentées dans cette thèse est la différenciation faite entre les PRN constructives (concrètes expérientielles) et non constructives (abstraites analytiques) dans la procédure d’induction.Les résultats suggèrent que les pensées analytiques abstraites interfèrent avec la régulation émotionnelle dans une situation de problème non résolu. Contrairement aux prédictions, il semble que les pensées abstraites favorisent les processus inhibiteurs et attentionnels dans le traitement des stimuli verbaux.Les résultats sont discutés selon la perspective de la théorie du mode de traitement et de la théorie de dérégulation du niveau objectif/action. Une nouvelle approche des fonctions exécutives dans les PRN est également proposée : l’hypothèse de l’allocation des ressources cognitives dirigée par le mode de traitement. / Repetitive negative thinking (RNT) is one of the transdiagnostic processes involved in development, recurrence and relapse of various psychological disorders, i.e. mood disorders, or anxiety disorders. One of the priorities in the current RNT research is to identify the mechanisms responsible for RNT development and maintain. RNT theory and previous research identified inhibition and attentional disengagement impairment as two potential factors of RNT recurrence.The first aim of the dissertation was to systematize previous research exploring the relation between RNT and inhibition. The second aim was to experimentally test how RNT induction affects both, inhibition and attentional disengagement. The first two chapters present RNT concept itself and a systematic literature review on the links between RNT and inhibition. The following chapters are composed of two empirical articles. The first article presents three experimental studies exploring the impact of RNT induction on inhibition efficiency. The second article tests experimentally how RNT affects attentional disengagement. An important contribution of these experimental studies lays also in testing separately constructive (concrete experiential) and unconstructive (abstract analytic) RNT processing mode.The results suggest that abstract analytic thinking impairs emotional regulation in a non-resolved problem situation – a situation predicted to activate RNT. Contrarily to the predictions, it seems that abstract analytic processing enhances inhibition and attentional performance for verbal stimuli comparing to concrete processing.These results are discussed at the theoretical level in the processing mode theory and deregulation of goal/action level perspective. We provide also methodological recommendation for the further research on the link between RNT and executive functions. Finally, we propose a new framework for the hypothesis of processing mode driven resource allocation in RNT.

Experiencing traumatic events has a high lifetime prevalence ranging between 60.7 and 76.2% across different countries (1). Exposure to traumatic events is associated with a higher risk for various mental disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (2, 3), which are related to high individual and societal costs (4). The development of interventions to prevent adverse mental health consequences following traumatic event exposure is therefore of vital importance. This, however, requires detailed knowledge about the underlying biological and psychological mechanisms involved in the association between traumatic events and psychopathology. Various risk factors at different levels have already been described in the last decades (5). Biological risk factors include genetic and epigenetic variations (6), alterations in the function of the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis (7, 8) and the autonomic nervous system (9) as well as changes in brain structure and functioning (10). Psychological risk factors include impairments in cognitive abilities (11) and specific personality traits such as high trait anxiety (12) and maladaptive emotion regulation (13). Social risk factors include impaired interpersonal relations and stigmatization (14, 15). Further, clinical risk factors such as mental health history as well as previous traumatic experiences may also increase the risk for psychopathology after trauma exposure (16). Most of these factors are supposed to be associated with risk of psychopathology independent of the type of traumatic event. However, it is likely that specific traumatic events are associated with different constellations of risk factors, which has so far received little attention in the existing literature. Importantly, traumatic events explicitly include not only events that are personally experienced but also events that are witnessed by an observer (17). This includes witnessing someone being seriously hurt, seeing atrocities or witnessing dead bodies. Witnessed traumatic events are among the most frequent traumatic experiences (1). They are also of high current relevance in the contexts of natural disasters, terrorist attacks and military crises (16, 18, 19). The fact that individuals can develop psychopathological reactions to events that are actually experienced by others raises the question how the suffering of others is being processed. Based on theoretical models and findings from social cognition and neuroscience research, we propose that socio-affective and socio-cognitive mechanisms are involved in the processing and pathological consequences of witnessing traumatic events and could contribute to a better understanding of adverse reactions to this type of traumatic events.

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