Brooding and reflecting in an interpersonal context
Introduction
Adolescence is a critical developmental period for the first onset of depression. By the end of adolescence, prevalence rates have increased as much as sixfold (e.g., Costello, Erkanli, & Angold, 2006). Because recurrence rates from adolescence to adulthood are substantial (Birmaher, Arbelaez, & Brent, 2002) and even subclinical depressive symptoms are linked with impaired functioning (Roberts, Lewinsohn, & Seeley, 1991), it is important to identify factors that contribute to the onset and maintenance of depressive symptoms in youth.
An influential model of depression vulnerability is the Response Styles Theory (RST; Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991), which posits that the way in which individuals respond to their depressive symptoms influences both the duration and the severity of these symptoms. Central to this theory is the concept of rumination, which refers to the “behaviors and thoughts that focus one’s attention on one’s depressive symptoms and on the implications of these symptoms” (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991, p. 569). Rumination has been repeatedly shown to predict the onset, severity, persistence, and recurrence of depressive symptoms in both adult and youth populations (for a review, see e.g., Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco, & Lyubomirsky, 2008).
More recently, rumination is considered as a two-dimensional construct, with brooding and reflection representing two components (Treynor, Gonzalez, & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2003). Brooding is defined as “a passive comparison of one’s current situation with some unachieved standard” (e.g., thinking about a recent situation, wishing it had gone better), whereas reflection refers to “purposeful turning inward to engage in cognitive problem solving” (e.g., analyzing your personality to try to understand why you are depressed) (Treynor et al., 2003, p. 256). A growing body of evidence in both adult and preadult samples suggests that brooding predicts increases in depressive symptoms over time (e.g., Burwell and Shirk, 2007, Schoofs et al., 2010, Treynor et al., 2003), whereas reflection can be protective against prospective depression (e.g., Treynor et al., 2003, Verstraeten et al., 2010; but see Burwell and Shirk, 2007, Schoofs et al., 2010).
Previously, rumination has been studied mainly as an intrapersonal response. However, researchers have begun to direct their attention to the interpersonal context of this response style. It was Rose (2002) who introduced the concept of co-rumination, i.e., “excessively discussing personal problems within a dyadic relationship” (p. 1830). Co-rumination is associated with greater positive friendship quality, but also with increased risk for emotional problems (Rose, 2002). For instance, higher levels of co-rumination were found to predict higher levels of concurrent depressive symptoms in both youth (Schwartz-Mette and Rose, 2012, Starr and Davila, 2009) and adults (Calmes & Roberts, 2008), and to be associated with a lifetime history of depressive disorders (Stone, Uhrlass, & Gibb, 2010). Also, co-rumination was found to predict increases in depressive symptoms over time (Hankin et al., 2010, Rose et al., 2007), as well as future depressive episodes, including first onsets (Stone, Hankin, Gibb, & Abela, 2011).
Given the value of considering interpersonal aspects of rumination, it makes sense to explore whether the intrapersonal aspects of the brooding and reflection components might also occur interpersonally and, if they do, to examine their unique associations with depressive symptoms. Toward this goal, the first aim of the current study was to identify relevant items within an existing measure of co-rumination (i.e., the Co-Rumination Questionnaire, Rose, 2002) and to determine if a distinction can be made between a more passive, repetitive and catastrophizing manner of co-rumination (i.e., co-brooding) and a more active, analyzing, and reflective form (i.e., co-reflection). To the best of our knowledge, no study thus far has looked at interpersonal variants of brooding and reflection.
If interpersonal aspects of brooding and reflection can indeed be distinguished, then it is reasonable to expect co-brooding, like intrapersonal brooding, to be related to higher levels of concurrent and prospective depressive symptoms. Predicting effects of co-reflection is less clear, as some authors in the rumination literature have found a positive relationship between reflection and depressive symptoms, whereas others found a negative relationship or no relationship at all. Thus, the second aim of this study was to examine to what extent the interpersonal aspects of brooding and reflection are differentially related to depressive symptoms, both concurrently and prospectively.
The third and final aim of the study was to investigate the extent to which interpersonal variants of brooding and reflection add to the prediction of depressive symptoms, over and above their intrapersonal counterparts. This way, the possibility can be ruled out that a potential relationship between components of co-rumination and depressive symptoms would be a mere consequence of a shared association with components of intrapersonal rumination.
Section snippets
Participants
A community sample of 401 pupils from the fifth and seventh grades of nine schools was approached. Parents of 16 children did not give their permission to participate and 11 children were absent on the day of administration. After eliminating the data of three pupils with random patterns of responding, the final Time 1 (T1) sample consisted of 371 pupils (63.1% girls) with a mean age of 11.73 years (SD = 1.10; range 9.42–15.00). Three-month follow-up (T2) data were available for 357 pupils (i.e.,
Confirmatory factor analyses
The internal structure of the 11-item subset of CRQ items was investigated using confirmatory factor analysis. The hypothesized two-factor model (6 ‘co-brooding’ and 5 ‘co-reflection’ items) was compared to a one-factor model (11 ‘co-rumination’ items). Both models showed good fit to the data: χ2(44) = 143.73, CFI = .98 for the one-factor model, and χ2(43) = 130.48, CFI = .98 for the two-factor model. However, the two-factor model performed significantly better than the one-factor model, χ2diff(1) =
Discussion
The present study is the first to examine co-brooding and co-reflection as interpersonal variants of brooding and reflection and to investigate if these variants differentially predict depressive symptoms, both concurrently and over a three-month interval, over and above intrapersonal rumination.
Confirmatory factor analyses on a subset of CRQ items, all consistent with the definitions of brooding and reflection, provided support for a two-dimensional model with co-brooding (i.e., the tendency
Acknowledgement
This research project was sponsored by Grant G.0923.12 from the Research Foundation – Flanders to Patricia Bijttebier.
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