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Understanding Reflective Pondering

Heath, Jacqueline Hyland
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1461846510

Abstract Details

2016, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Psychology.
Research has identified two aspects of rumination labeled brooding and reflective pondering (i.e., reflection). According to Treynor et al. (2003), brooding involves “a passive comparison of one’s current situation with some unachieved standard” (p. 256) whereas reflection refers to “purposeful turning inward to engage in cognitive problem solving to alleviate one’s depressive symptoms” (p. 256). Although research has consistently linked brooding to depression, research investigating the relationship of reflection and depression has produced conflicting results. Some studies have found that reflection, like brooding, is positively correlated with depression (Roelofs et al., 2008; Rudeet al., 2007; Verhaeghen, Joormann, & Khan, 2005) whereas others have either found reflection to be unrelated to (Burwell & Shirk, 2007; O’Connor & Noyce, 2008) or even negatively correlated with (Treynor et al., 2003; Crane, Barnhofer, & Williams, 2007) depressive symptoms. In the present study, I sought to better understand the construct of reflection and investigated two potential pathways to explain inconsistent research surrounding this topic within the construct validation paradigm outlined by Cronbach & Meehl (1955). First, I investigated the possibility that the current measures of reflection do not make adequate contact with the construct of reflection. Secondly, I investigated the possibility that these discordant findings are the result of a problem with the definition of construct of reflection itself. Following both lines of reasoning, new questionnaire items were created in an attempt to better measure and understand the construct of reflection. Consistent with expectation, I found evidence that reflection may be most accurately conceptualized in terms of two largely independent factors; one adaptive and one maladaptive. In fact, the Adaptive Factor performed better than any of the currently available measures of reflection in terms of discriminant validity. Additionally, most current measures of reflection were demonstrated to have poor convergent validity and significantly overlapped with measures of brooding, suggesting that these measures are not effective at measuring the construct of reflection as it is currently outlined. Implications for theory and future research will be discussed.
Michael Vasey (Advisor)
Julian Thayer (Committee Member)
Steven Beck (Committee Member)
207 p.
Psychology
rumination; reflection; brooding; reflective pondering; perseverative thinking; Ruminative Responses Scale; RRS; Rumination-Reflection Scale; RRQ; ruminative response style; repetitive thought

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Heath, J. H. (2016). Understanding Reflective Pondering [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1461846510

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Heath, Jacqueline. Understanding Reflective Pondering. 2016. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1461846510.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Heath, Jacqueline. "Understanding Reflective Pondering." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1461846510

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1461846510
3,131
© 2016, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Understanding Reflective Pondering by Jacqueline Hyland Heath is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 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.