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How Do People Escape Rumination? Development of a Laboratory Task to Assess the Role of Negative Valenced Distraction

Dunn, Emily Justine
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1440347590

Abstract Details

2015, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, Psychology.
Rumination is a form of unconstructive repetitive thought (Watkins, 2008) that has been associated with psychopathology. Once it starts, this process is difficult to stop and recent models have suggested that people might even engage in self-destructive behaviors to escape from ruminative thoughts (e.g., Baumeister, 1991; Nolen-Hoeksema, Stice, Wade, & Bohon, 2007; Selby & Joiner, 2009). Extant work is limited to correlational designs. The present thesis aims to experimentally test whether people might be willing to escape rumination, even if that entails engaging with aversive stimuli. Participants (N = 110) completed a thought task that provided opportunities to “escape” thoughts and instead view a film clip (two blocks of neutral film clips, four blocks of disgust film clips). They were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions (distraction or rumination). There were no main effects of thought condition or interactions in predicting switching behavior from the thought task to the film clip. Similarly, there were no significant associations between switching behavior and individual differences in psychopathology symptoms, emotion dysregulation, habitual rumination, disgust sensitivity and propensity, or resting heart rate variability. The one exception was that individual differences in disgust propensity predicted fewer switches to the disgust film (that is, across both conditions, participants higher in disgust propensity preferred to engage in thinking, rather than viewing the aversive stimulus). Of note, the effect of the rumination induction was weak. Thus, it will be essential for future work examining the process of stopping rumination to utilize stronger, more aversive inductions. Additionally, future research should expand to include clinical populations to increase power to detect individual differences in mental health functioning and habitual use of rumination.
Amelia Aldao, Ph.D. (Advisor)
Ellen Peters, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Michael Vasey, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
63 p.
Psychology
rumination, emotion regulation

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Dunn, E. J. (2015). How Do People Escape Rumination? Development of a Laboratory Task to Assess the Role of Negative Valenced Distraction [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1440347590

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Dunn, Emily. How Do People Escape Rumination? Development of a Laboratory Task to Assess the Role of Negative Valenced Distraction. 2015. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1440347590.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Dunn, Emily. "How Do People Escape Rumination? Development of a Laboratory Task to Assess the Role of Negative Valenced Distraction." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1440347590

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1440347590
640
© 2015, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License How Do People Escape Rumination? Development of a Laboratory Task to Assess the Role of Negative Valenced Distraction by Emily Justine Dunn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.