Symposia
Transdiagnostic
Cassondra Lyman, B.S., B.A.
University of South Florida
Tampa, Florida
Eve Rosenfeld, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist (Fellow)
VA Palo Alto Health Care System/Stanford
Menlo Park, California
John Roberts, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
Buffalo, New York
Extensive research has shown that rumination serves as a transdiagnostic risk factor for psychopathology. However, relatively little is known about rumination in daily life. The present study tested the validity of a new approach for assessing daily episodes of rumination (i.e., the Day Reconstruction Method for Rumination; DRM-R) and collected initial descriptive information about ruminative episodes for individuals high and low in rumination-proneness (RP). One hundred and forty-five college students (85 high and 60 low in RP) completed self-report measures of psychological functioning and repetitive negative thinking, and reconstructed their previous day’s ruminative episodes by breaking the day down into scenes, identifying discrete periods of rumination, and answering follow-up questions about ruminative episodes. The DRM-R was found to effectively assess individuals’ daily episodes of rumination. As expected, those high in RP reported more frequent and longer-lasting ruminative episodes then those low in RP, and individuals high in RP more strongly endorsed past-focused thoughts and threatening thought content during ruminative episodes then those low in RP. Additionally, those high in RP generally indicated that they experience discrete periods of rumination. In sum, the DRM-R was able to capture individual differences in trait rumination. These results warrant future investigation of daily episodes of rumination using the DRM-R; it is anticipated that such studies might provide additional insight about the specific triggers for daily ruminative episodes and allow for further clarification regarding which factors help to differentiate the various forms of rumination.