Generalizability of Repetitive Thought: Examining Stability in Thought Content and Process

Linking repetitive negative thinking and insomnia symptoms: A longitudinal trait-state model

Sleep disturbance is highly debilitating, and an abundance of research suggests that repetitive negative thinking (i.e., rumination, worry) may contribute to the development and maintenance of maladaptive sleep patterns, such as insomnia symptoms. Although repetitive negative thinking is often conceptualized as a 'trait' risk factor for anxiety-related disorders, it is unclear if it consists of time-varying (TV) or state-like features versus time-invariant (TI) or trait-like characteristics. Furthermore, it is unclear if it is the TV or TI components of repetitive negative thinking that contribute to insomnia symptoms that is commonly observed in anxiety-related disorders. In a 6-wave, 5-month longitudinal study, community participants (N = 1219) completed measures of rumination, worry, transdiagnostic repetitive negative thinking, and insomnia symptoms. A latent variable (trait-state-occasion) model was applied to the measures of repetitive negative thinking. The results showed that although estimates of TI factor variance and TV factor variance were both significant for latent repetitive negative thinking, worry, and rumination, the proportion of TI factor variance (0.82-0.89) was greater than the amount of TV factor variance (0.11-0.19). Although TV factor stability was statistically significant for latent repetitive negative thinking, rumination, and worry, the magnitude of the coefficients was small. Furthermore, regression weights for the latent repetitive negative thinking, rumination, and worry TI factor were significant and larger than those for the TV factor in predicting insomnia symptoms at each of the six time points. These findings suggest that repetitive negative thinking is largely TI, and it is this TI component that contributes to insomnia symptoms. Implications for conceptualizations of repetitive negative thinking as a predisposing and perpetuating factor in insomnia for anxiety and related disorders are discussed.

Emotion regulation in response to daily negative and positive events in youth: The role of event intensity and psychopathology

Environmental and individual contextual factors profoundly influence how people regulate their emotions. The current article addresses the role of event intensity and psychopathology (an admixture of depression, anxiety, and psychoticism) on emotion regulation in response to naturally occurring events. For six days each evening, a youth sample (aged 15-25, N = 713) recorded the intensity of the most positive and most negative event of the day and their subsequent emotion regulation. The intensity of negative events was positively associated with summed total emotion regulation effort, strategy diversity, engaging in rumination, situation modification, emotion expression, and sharing and negatively associated with reappraisal and acceptance. The intensity of positive events was positively associated with strategy diversity, savoring, emotion expression, and sharing. Higher psychopathology symptoms were only related to ruminating more about negative events. We interpret these findings as support for the role of context in the degree of effort and type of emotion regulation that young people engage in.

Is repetitive negative thinking a transdiagnostic process? A comparison of key processes of RNT in depression, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and community controls

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

The transdiagnostic view of repetitive negative thinking (RNT) claims that different forms of RNT are characterized by identical processes that are applied to disorder-specific content. The purpose of the study was to test whether the processes of RNT differ across major depression disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

METHODS

Forty-two individuals diagnosed with MDD, 35 individuals with GAD, 41 individuals with OCD, and 35 community controls were asked to think of a typical RNT episode and to rate its processes (core processes; use of mental capacity, unproductivity, abstractness, verbal quality, duration). Ratings were compared across groups using planned contrasts and analysis of variance.

RESULTS

All individuals with a clinical diagnosis rated the key processes of RNT and avoidance function of RNT as higher than healthy controls. There were no differences between individuals diagnosed with MDD, GAD or OCD on key processes and avoidance function of RNT.

LIMITATIONS

Results are based on retrospective self-reports, which might restrict validity of the measurements.

CONCLUSIONS

Data support the transdiagnostic hypothesis of RNT. Transdiagnostic prevention and intervention techniques seem highly recommendable given these findings.

Rumination and Psychopathology: Are Anger and Depressive Rumination Differentially Associated with Internalizing and Externalizing Psychopathology?

Existing literature on rumination has predominately focused on depressive rumination; thus, there is little research directly comparing different forms of rumination as correlates of psychopathological outcomes. The present study investigated anger and depressive rumination as correlates of internalizing and externalizing psychopathology. Cross-sectional confirmatory factor analyses on data from 764 young adults from the Colorado Longitudinal Twin Study indicated that anger and depressive rumination were separable at the latent variable level, and were both associated with lifetime symptoms of internalizing and externalizing psychopathology. However, depressive rumination was more strongly associated with psychopathology than was anger rumination. Further analysis indicated that depressive rumination was independently associated with internalizing psychopathology, whereas associations between anger rumination and psychopathology were predominately due to shared variance with depressive rumination. Anger rumination was independently associated with externalizing psychopathology in women and was inversely associated with internalizing psychopathology in men. This result supports the clinical relevance of ruminative thought processes and the potential differential utility of anger and depressive content for understanding internalizing and externalizing psychopathology.

Delineating Characteristics of Maladaptive Repetitive Thought: Development and Preliminary Validation of the Perseverative Cognitions Questionnaire

Worry, rumination, and obsessive thinking are theorized to differ on temporal orientation, positive perceived function, degree of intrusiveness, and discordance with one's self-concept. However, prior findings with respect to such differences may be due to method variance of the measures used and/or inclusion of items confounded by diagnostic symptoms. Accurately capturing differences between types of perseverative thought linked to psychopathology and understanding whether such aspects are common across disorders or specific to some may be important to designing effective treatments for them. Two studies are presented detailing the development and validation of the Perseverative Cognitions Questionnaire (PCQ). The PCQ is a 45-item self-report measure that assesses six dimensional characteristics of worry, rumination, and obsessive thinking previously found to discriminate these thought styles: Lack of Controllability, Preparing for the Future, Expecting the Worst, Searching for Causes/Meaning, Dwelling on the Past, and Thinking Discordant with Ideal Self. Factor structure of the PCQ was established using principal components, exploratory factor, and confirmatory factor analyses. PCQ scales exhibited differential convergence with measures of perseverative thought and psychopathology. The PCQ also demonstrated acceptable retest correlations across 1- and 2-week periods, and incremental validity when predicting symptoms of anxiety, depression, and obsessive compulsive disorder.

Briefly Assessing Repetitive Thought Dimensions: Valence, Purpose, and Total

Discrete forms of repetitive thought (RT), such as worry and reflection, can be characterized along basic dimensions of valence (positive vs. negative) and purpose (searching vs. solving). In addition, people can be characterized as high or low in their tendency to engage in RT. This dimensional model has been demanding to assess, and a smaller number of items that could stand in for a large battery would make measurement more accessible. Using four samples (N = 1,588), eight items that assess RT valence, purpose, and total in a circumplex model were identified. Across these and other samples, the dimensions were adequately reliable and valid with regard to assessment via large RT battery, other measures of RT, and depressive symptoms. The accessibility of dimensional assessment of RT using this smaller number of items should facilitate work on questions about the qualities of RT that predict mental and physical health.

Variability and reliability of diurnal cortisol in younger and older adults: implications for design decisions

The extant research is inconclusive regarding the best sampling methods to construct reliable measures of between-person differences in derived parameters of diurnal cortisol, and no study provides such recommendations for detecting within-person changes. These studies determined how many days of sampling are necessary to assess between-person differences and within-person changes over multiple occasions in diurnal mean, diurnal slope, and area under the curve (AUC). Generalizability and decision analyses were conducted on diurnal salivary cortisol data from two separate longitudinal studies, one with younger adults (N=124) and one with older adults (N=148). In both studies, results indicated that 3 days of data collection provided the minimal level of reliability in mean cortisol to detect between-person differences; 4-8 days were necessary to reliably assess AUC, and 10 days for cortisol slope. Similarly, in order to reliably characterize within-person changes across occasions, at least 3 days of data collection were needed for mean cortisol and AUC and 5-8 days for slope. Results also indicated that only two samples per day, taken morning and evening, could faithfully reproduce the diurnal slope calculated from 3 or 4 samples (r=.97-.99). Instead of having participants provide many samples per day over the course of a few days, we recommend collecting fewer samples per day over more days.

Repetitive thought dimensions, psychological well-being, and perceived growth in older adults: a multilevel, prospective study

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Forms of repetitive thought (RT) such as worry are clearly related to states such as anxiety and depression. However, the presence of other forms such as reminiscing suggests that RT could also relate to eudaimonic well-being (EWB). Furthermore, a largely overlooked characteristic, total tendency to engage in RT, may associate with a particular kind of EWB, namely, perceived growth (PG).

DESIGN

Older adults (N=150) were interviewed semi-annually for up to 10 waves.

METHODS

Participants completed a battery of RT measures at baseline and annual assessments of psychological well-being (PWB) and PG. Multilevel models tested the prospective, between-person relationships between baseline RT and future PWB and PG.

RESULTS

RT qualities prospectively predicted both PWB and PG: more positive valence best predicted PWB whereas more negative valence and more total RT best predicted PG. Furthermore, RT qualities largely accounted for a negative between-person relationship between PWB and PG.

CONCLUSIONS

Different qualities of RT promoted different kinds of EWB, and a negative association between different kinds of EWB could be attributed to their different RT antecedents.

Disentangling sources of individual differences in diurnal salivary α-amylase: reliability, stability and sensitivity to context

In the present study, we employ a longitudinal design and a generalizability framework to examine the sources of variance in the diurnal rhythm of salivary α-amylase (sAA). The sample consisted of 122 first-year law students (55% male, mean age=23.9 years), who collected five saliva samples on each of three consecutive days at each of five data collection waves. In total, over 6900 saliva samples were collected, which allowed us to examine the properties of diurnal variation in sAA in great detail. Systematic individual differences accounted for 15-29% of the variability in the awakening response and diurnal slope, and for 61-65% of the variation in overall daily levels (i.e., diurnal mean, area under the curve with respect to ground [AUCg]). Although less than 1% of the variation was due to differences between waves and between days, the generalizability analyses revealed that between 16% and 17% of the variance in the diurnal mean, slope and AUCg is due to person by wave interactions, indicating that individuals vary in their biological sensitivity to environmental influences. In sum, this study documents sufficient stability and variation in diurnal sAA to warrant future studies on the origins and consequences of alterations in the diurnal rhythm of sAA worthwhile, and proposes guidelines on obtaining reliable measures.

Episodic repetitive thought: dimensions, correlates, and consequences

Repetitive thought (RT) - attentive, prolonged, or frequent thought about oneself and one's world - plays an important role in many models of psychological and physical ill health (e.g., rumination and worry), as well as models of recovery and well-being (e.g., processing and reminiscing). In these models, repetitive thought is typically treated as stable or trait-like. In contrast, episodic RT reflects what people have "on their minds" at a particular point in time. In four studies, young women (N=94), college students (N=166), first-year law students (N=73), and older adults (N=174) described their episodic RT, which was then rated for qualities including valence, purpose, and theme. Episodic RT valence was associated with mood and depressive symptoms both between (Studies 1-4) and within people (Studies 3-4), and it mediated the effects of dispositional coping through emotional approach (Study 1). The effect of episodic RT valence in turn was moderated by other properties of episodic RT, including purpose, "trait" valence, and theme (Studies 1-4). The study of episodic RT complements that of trait RT and allows for observations of how RT and psychological adjustment change in concert and in context, as well as examining how the RT qualities that are not reflected in trait measures affect adjustment.