Background and Objectives: Rumination may contribute to depression by impairing the most effective allocation of time across activities. An experiment tested the role of rumination in time allocation across tasks. Methods: State rumination was manipulated by cueing an unresolved goal in one condition (32 participants) and cueing a resolved goal in another condition (32 participants). Trait rumination and depressive symptoms were also measured. All participants completed two word generation tasks and allocated a fixed overall time budget between the tasks by interleaving between them. Results: No difference was found in task performance or time allocation following the manipulation of state rumination. Self-reported rumination did not differ between conditions throughout the experimental task. Differences in time allocation behaviour were associated with trait rumination. Limitations: Use of a non-clinical population and tasks that are unrepresentative of everyday problem solving limited the generalisability of the results and may have limited the effect of the state rumination manipulation on task performance. Conclusions: The absence of a difference in self-reported rumination throughout the task suggests that either the word generation task reduced levels of rumination or that the level of rumination induced did not have a large effect on the cognitive processes required to complete the word generation task.

Objective: Theoretical and empirical evidence suggests a relationship between Repetitive Thought (RT, e.g. rumination), and depression in patients with Coronary Heart Disease (CHD). To date, cross-sectional studies indicate that rumination is associated with depression in CHD, but additional prospective longitudinal research is required to determine if rumination predicts subsequent depression. This research therefore aimed to test the hypothesis that RT, specifically rumination, is a vulnerability factor for depression over time in a CHD population. It was predicted that RT at baseline would predict depression rates at three month follow-up after controlling for baseline depression and potential confounding factors. Methods: Inpatients and outpatients with a diagnosis of CHD completed self-report questionnaires at baseline (N = 101) and at three month follow-up (N = 85). The data was analysed using a hierarchical multiple regression. Results: Baseline rumination significantly predicted depression at the three month follow-up after controlling for baseline depression and potential confounding factors. Rumination accounted for 8.3% of the variance (p< .001). Subscales of brooding and reflection were also found to be individually predictive of follow-up depression explaining 4% of the variance (p< .005) and 7% of the variance (p< .001) respectively. Conclusion: Findings are consistent with previous prospective and cross-sectional research that indicates that rumination plays a unique role in the maintenance of depression in CHD patients and is an identifiable vulnerability factor.

Criticism of discrete classification systems for mental disorders has led to a focus on identification of mechanisms that cut across symptom clusters, known as transdiagnostic factors. One such proposed factor is negative repetitive thought (NRT), or a perseverative, often uncontrollable, focus on negative information, experiences, or expectations. Worry and rumination are two major constructs thought to compose NRT. No confirmatory factor analyses have investigated whether worry and rumination might compose a general NRT factor, discrete factors, or some combination of the two. The first purpose of the current study was to use confirmatory factor analyses to uncover whether worry and rumination are best characterized as separate or common constructs. In addition to this purpose, the study investigated NRT as a transdiagnostic factor for psychopathology. Finally, it examined incremental associations of NRT with mental illness symptoms, after controlling for negative emotionality, the most well established transdiagnostic risk factor. A bi-factor conceptualization of worry and rumination, in which there was a common NRT factor and specific worry and rumination factors, yielded the best fit to the data across three separate samples. The NRT factor was associated with both internalizing and externalizing psychopathology; however, it demonstrated significant overlap with negative emotionality. Further exploration of this overlap using bi-factor modeling demonstrated that NRT and negative emotionality are likely best thought of as a unidimensional general negative affect construct, and this structure was replicated across samples. Importantly, evidence was found that this tendency to experience negative affect was also a common liability for mental illness symptoms.

Segerstrom et al. (2017) found that more repetitive thought (RT) was related to lower interleukin-6 (IL-6), in older adults at average IQ. This study aimed to replicate and extend this finding in midlife adults, with a daily measure of RT, and additional inflammatory biomarkers. 153 participants were drawn from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) Refresher project; ages 25-70 (M = 45.07, SD = 10.96), 50.3% female, and 83% Caucasian. Cognition was assessed via the Brief Test of Adult Cognition by Telephone, biological data via fasted blood draw, and RT data were collected as part of the National Study of Daily Experiences daily diary. Total RT (amount one engages in RT) and RT valence (positive vs. negative thought content) were analyzed. As IQ increased, more positive RT was associated with lover levels of IL-6 and CRP after adjusting for age, BMI, and statin use (β = -.161, p = .029; β = -.240, p = .002). Results did not replicate Segerstrom et al. (2017) but suggested that crystallized intelligence and RT total reflect a cognitive system different than that of fluid intelligence, executive functioning, and RT valence. Future studies should continue to investigate effects of RT on health outcomes.

BACKGROUND: Female veterans are at risk for stress-related physical disorders given unique environmental stress factors, high rates of trauma exposure and a heightened physiologic stress response. There is a need to identify modifiable risk factors which may help minimize the emergence and impact of veteran illness. RESEARCH QUESTION: The present study investigated the contributions of posttraumatic stress symptoms, maladaptive repetitive thought (MRT), depression, childhood trauma and health behaviors (sleep, alcohol use and smoking) to physical disease as operationalized by immune-mediated inflammatory disease occurrence and related functional disability. METHOD: Female Reserve or National Guard veterans (N = 643) enrolled in a parent study conducted through the Iowa City Veteran's Affairs Hospital completed a one-time computer-assisted telephone interview. The current study examined self-report measures of posttraumatic stress symptoms, MRT, depression, childhood trauma, smoking, alcohol use, sleep, inflammatory disease incidence and physical functioning. RESULTS: Proposed models of primary hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. Results indicated that both physical disease and functional decline were greater in veterans reporting a history of trauma. Physical disease was associated with greater depression and childhood trauma but lower levels of alcohol use after accounting for covariates. Unexpectedly, greater MRT was associated with less physical disease, although it was only related to disease when depression was included as a covariate. Reduced sleep was linked with greater disease but only when depression was not included in the model, and depression was found to fully mediate the relationship between sleep and physical disease. Smoking and the interaction between posttraumatic stress symptoms and MRT were generally unrelated to physical disease in this sample. CONCLUSIONS: Results of this study are consistent with the hypothesis that physical disorders and related functional decline are greater in trauma-exposed individuals and that depression, childhood trauma, repetitive thought and alcohol use have independent associations with physical disease. This study offers support for further research and interventions which address these relationships to protect female veteran health.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by patterns of intense negative affect, interpersonal difficulties, and maladaptive impulsive behaviors, and is associated with impairments in social and occupational functioning. Rumination is a maladaptive form of repetitive thought that maintains and intensifies emotional disturbance and is associated with behavioral dysregulation. This study tested several hypotheses about relationships between rumination and borderline personality features. This study included 117 college student participants, 88 female students and 29 male students, most of whom (84%) identified themselves as Caucasian. Participants completed a series of measures which included a writing sample to sample repetitive thought. Findings consistently suggested that rumination accounts for significant incremental variance in BPD features after controlling for various facets of neuroticism, which suggests that individuals with BPD features are probably engaging in high levels of multiple types of rumination. However, scores derived from the On Your Mind writing sample did not predict severity of borderline features after controlling for the NEO-neuroticism domain. Implications for these findings and limitations to this study are also discussed.

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