Emotional competencies relate to co-rumination: Implications for emotion socialization within adolescent friendships

Co-rumination between friends: Considering the roles of outcome expectations, relationship provisions, and perceptions of problems

Despite its implications for adjustment, little is known about factors that support co-rumination in friendships. The current multi-method, longitudinal study addressed this question with 554 adolescents (Mage = 14.50; 52% girls; 62% White; 31% Black; 7% Asian American) from the Midwestern United States in 2007-2010. Adolescents were observed talking about problems with a friend and reported on their outcome expectations for problem disclosures, relationship provisions during problem talk, and problem perceptions after problem talk. Participants reported on outcome expectations again 9 months later. Results indicate that the positive relationship provisions associated with co-rumination may outweigh negative problem perceptions in predicting adolescents' outcome expectations for problem disclosures over time. Implications for the potentially reinforcing nature of co-rumination are discussed.

Decomposing variance in co-rumination using dyadic daily diary data

It is unknown how co-rumination, or perseverating on problems or feelings with another person, unfolds in the daily lives of romantic couples. Using a variance decomposition procedure on data from a 14-day dyadic diary, we assessed how much variance in co-rumination was attributable to temporally stable and varying factors, as well as whether co-rumination is better measured as a couple-level or individual-level process. Within-person, within-couple fluctuations in co-rumination contributed most (~33%) to the total variance and summary scores based on these fluctuations were reliable. Stable between-couple differences accounted for ~14% of the total variance and could also be reliably assessed. However, within-couple agreement in co-rumination was low, such that the reliability at the level of within-couple change was inadequate. Research is needed to understand these divergent perceptions of co-rumination and potential downstream consequences. We conclude by considering how these results inform theory and can be applied to similar dyadic constructs.

Co-rumination and conversational self-focus: Adjustment implications of problem talk in adolescents' friendships

Friendships are central relationships during adolescence. Given the increased experience of stress during adolescence, friends are especially critical sources of support at this time. Although experiencing social support is related to well-being, adolescents' experiences sharing problems with friends is not always positive. In this chapter, we consider two forms of problematic talk, co-rumination and conversational self-focus. Co-rumination refers to conversations about problems that is excessive, repetitive, speculative, and focused on negative affect. Conversational self-focus refers to adolescents re-directing conversations about friends' problems to oneself. Both co-rumination and conversational self-focus are associated with depressive symptoms. However, whereas co-rumination draws friends together and is associated with positive friendship quality, adolescents who engage in conversational self-focus are increasingly rejected by friends. Directions for future research and applied implications of studying social support processes between friends are discussed.

Developmental Associations Between Sympathy and Mutual Disclosure in Friendships From Mid-Adolescence to Early Adulthood

Sympathy is regarded as an important precursor to the development of emotional intimacy, including mutual disclosure. In turn, emotional intimacy is assumed to foster the development of sympathy. Yet, research has not examined how sympathy and mutual disclosure in generic friendships are mutually related to one another during mid-adolescence to early adulthood. Data came from three waves of the Swiss Survey of Children and Youth (COCON; N = 1,258). Bidirectional links between sympathy and mutual disclosure were tested with autoregressive cross-lagged panel analyses. Sympathy at age 15 was associated with mutual disclosure in friendships at 18, which in turn was associated with sympathy at 21. Multi-group models suggested that our model better describes these processes in females than in males.

Co-Rumination Moderates the Relation between Emotional Competencies and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescents: a Longitudinal Examination

Research suggests co-rumination during adolescence has developmental tradeoffs that result in elevated self-disclosure and intimacy between friends but also can be associated with increases in depression (Rose et al. 2007; Rose 2002). The current study further examined this paradox by assessing the role of emotional competencies in co-rumination as they predict depressive symptoms over a 2-year period. We tested whether co-rumination moderated the relation between emotional awareness and emotion regulation and depressive symptoms in reciprocated best friend dyads. At Time 1, 202 adolescents (101 same-sex best friend dyads; M_age = 12.68, 52.5% girls, 76.6% White, middle-class) reported on their emotional competencies (i.e., emotional awareness and perceptions of their friend's anger and sadness regulation), and depressive symptoms as well as engaged in a discussion task where co-rumination was observed. Multilevel modeling (Actor-Partner Interdependence Modeling) was used to account for similarity within friend dyads. The results indicated that when girls engaged in high levels of co-rumination, poor emotional awareness was related to greater depressive symptoms in their friend. Regarding the analyses of emotion regulation, at high levels of co-rumination, Friend A's perceptions of stronger anger regulation by Friend B predicted fewer depressive symptoms in Friend A. Stronger sadness regulation in Friend B at high levels of co-rumination predicted fewer depressive symptoms in Friend B. Our findings highlight the potentially adaptive nature of emotional competencies that may ameliorate the negative sequelae of co-rumination as adolescents are afforded the opportunity to discuss problems, better understand their emotions, skills that are then associated with fewer depressive symptoms over time.