Moreover, they have begun to examine repetitive negative thinking-defined as “repetitive thinking about one or more negative topics that is experienced as difficult to control” ( Ehring & Watkins, 2008, p. Similarly, worry, defined as future-oriented repetitive thinking about potential threats, uncertainties, and risks, is a primary symptom of generalized anxiety disorder ( Borkovec, Ray, & Stober, 1998 Hoyer, Becker, & Margraf, 2002), and has negative health consequences, even at subclinical levels ( Haller, Cramer, Lauche, Gass, & Dobos, 2014).Īlthough rumination and worry have often been studied separately, researchers have noted the substantial shared variance between them ( Fresco, Frankel, Mennin, Turk, & Heimberg, 2002 McEvoy & Brans, 2013 Spinhoven, Drost, van Hemert, & Penninx, 2015 Topper, Molenaar, Emmelkamp, & Ehring, 2014). Rumination, defined as past-oriented mental perseveration on causes and consequences of one’s distress, is associated with increased risk of developing depression and duration of depressive episodes ( Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000 Nolen-Hoeksema, Morrow, & Fredrickson, 1993 Roberts, Gilboa, & Gotlib, 1998).
These results suggest that repetitive negative thinking may indeed lie at the core of the comorbidity between depression and anxiety symptoms, but that it is also a broader construct that encompasses intrusive thoughts and low levels of mindfulness. These associations were mostly explained by shared variance with rumination and worry, but there was also some mindfulness-specific variance. We also found in Study 2 that repetitive negative thinking was positively related to intrusive thoughts and negatively related to mindfulness. Moreover, the shared variation in rumination and worry explained the frequencies of depression and anxiety symptoms and their overlap. Results in Study 1 indicated that individual differences in repetitive negative thinking were explained largely by the overlap between rumination and worry, but also by some rumination-specific and worry-specific variance.
To analyze the data, we conducted systematic commonality analyses, which algebraically decomposed shared variances among these measures into various unique components. In this study, 643 college students completed self-report questionnaire measures of repetitive negative thinking (the Habit Index of Negative Thinking) and other relevant constructs including rumination, worry, depression and anxiety symptoms, intrusive thoughts, and mindfulness. Although not studied extensively, repetitive negative thinking may not only account for a substantial overlap between depression and anxiety symptoms but also encapsulate other constructs including one’s tendency to experience unwanted intrusive thoughts or have low levels of mindfulness. Recent theoretical advances have emphasized the commonality between rumination and worry, often referred to as repetitive negative thinking.
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