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The impact of ruminative thought style on the maintenance of depressive mood

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2024

V. Misic ,
T. Vukosavljevic Gvozden  and
B. Batinic
V. Misic
Affiliation:
1Department of Psychology, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy
T. Vukosavljevic Gvozden
Affiliation:
1Department of Psychology, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy
B. Batinic*
Affiliation:
2University Clinical Centre of Serbia, Clinic of Psychiatry, University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Psychology, Belgrade, Serbia
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Introduction

Ruminations are a cognitive style of “thought recycling”, which involves passively and repeatedly focusing on disorder and distress symptoms, or their causes, without attempting to alleviate them. They are a significant indicator of cognitive vulnerability, predicting the emergence, maintenance, and recurrence of depressive symptoms.

Objectives

To estimate the impact of the ruminative thought style on the maintenance and escalation of depressive mood.

Methods

The research sample consisted of 60 students between the ages of 19 and 30 (M = 23), divided into two experimental groups with 30 participants each. The participants took part in a 5-minute experiment that involved recalling an autobiographically sad event, assessing their mood on the Scale for Self-Assessment of Emotions (EAS) before and after the induction, and then splitting into two groups of 30 participants for random ruminating or distraction. The Beck Depression Inventory-II, the Ruminative Response Scale, the Ruminative Thought Style Questionnaire, and the EAS were used as research instruments. The progressive group relaxation approach was used at the end of the experiment with all participants to promote relaxation and lessen the psychophysical tension brought on by the experimental induction (10 minutes total).

Results

The experimental groups did not differ in mood intensity prior to the induction of sadness. Both experimental groups experienced significant impacts on depressed mood following the induction of sadness (F (1,58) =92.05, p<0.001): participants who ruminated demonstrated persistence in their negative mood, whereas participants who engaged in distractions demonstrated a decrease in their negative mood, even below the initial level (F (2,116) =12.69, p<0.001).

Conclusions

This result provides an additional experimental validation of the phenomenon of maintaining a depressive mood through ruminations. An essential psychotherapy goal should be the treatment (metacognitive therapy, rumination-focused CBT, mindfulness, cognitive bias correction, etc.) of such mechanisms, recognized as crucial for the maintenance of depression.

Disclosure of Interest

None Declared

Type
Abstract
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 67 , Special Issue S1: Abstracts of the 32nd European Congress of Psychiatry , April 2024 , pp. S257
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of European Psychiatric Association
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