The developmental origins of ruminative response style: An integrative review

doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2019.101780

Clinical Psychology Review

Volume 74, December 2019, 101780

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2019.101780 Get rights and content

Highlights

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This review examines the developmental risk factors of ruminative response style.
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A model integrating these factors within a conceptual framework is proposed.
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Risk factors for distress lead to engagement in rumination.
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When rumination is well-practiced, it will consolidate into a trait-like response style.
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This is especially true among adolescents who experience cognitive control deficits.

Abstract

Rumination has been conceptualized as a stable, trait-level response style involving repetitive and passive focus on the symptoms of distress and the possible causes and consequences of those symptoms. This theoretical review examines developmental risk factors of ruminative response style, incorporating a developmental psychopathology perspective. A model integrating these developmental factors within a conceptual framework is proposed, wherein risk factors for distress (i.e., temperamental negative affectivity, stressful environments, parenting, and genetic vulnerability) lead to engagement in rumination. We propose that when rumination is well-practiced, it will consolidate into a trait-like response style, especially among adolescents who experience cognitive control deficits. Reciprocal relationships and moderators that may contribute to the formation of a ruminative response style are also included. To understand how these factors converge and influence the formation of ruminative response styles, we review patterns of stability and change in physical and cognitive development to demonstrate that individual differences in rumination may emerge and consolidate into enduring, trait-level response styles during early adolescence.

Graphical abstract

Section snippets

The conceptualization and measurement of rumination

The process of thinking attentively, repetitively, or frequently about oneself and one's world forms the core of a number of different classes of repetitive thought. Of them, worry and rumination have received the most empirical attention. These constructs share a repetitive, perseverate self-focus, and abstract, over-general thinking style. Although there is evidence for intercorrelations between worry and rumination, key features differentiate them, including time orientation, focus, and

Developmental factors associated with rumination

Our model (Fig. 1, described above) posits two pathways through which risk factors influence the consolidation of a ruminative response style. First, the risk factor may increase the experience of negative affect. This supplies the individual with depressogenic content on which to dwell and increases the likelihood of spontaneous (state) rumination, which when rehearsed will consolidate into trait rumination (the ‘Distress’ Pathway). Second, the risk factor may increase the likelihood that this

The emergence and consolidation of ruminative response style

Developmental theories examining age-related changes in cognitive vulnerabilities suggest engagement in rumination may emerge in childhood and stabilize into an enduring, trait-level response style linked to psychopathology during the transition to adolescence. We suggested earlier that certain risk factors contribute to the likelihood of consolidation and speculate this is associated with changes in physical and cognitive development, as well as a ‘practice effect’ (i.e., the more often a

Conclusions, future directions, and clinical implications

We have presented a novel model for the emergence and consolidation of ruminative response style. Our review also identified gaps in the literature, which will be important to address in future studies. To date, most studies on the developmental origins of ruminative style have a) relied on self-report questionnaires to measure one's general tendency to ruminate, b) identified main effects of specific risk factors on the development of rumination, and c) used cross-sectional designs. These

Role of funding sources

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Contributors

Zoey A. Shaw, Lori M. Hilt, and Lisa R. Starr designed the study. Zoey Shaw conducted literature searches and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to and have approved the final manuscript.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Drs. Patrick Davies and Sheree Toth, who reviewed earlier drafts of the manuscript.

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According to response style theory, different response behaviors may affect depressed mood duration and severity (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1987). With depressive rumination, individuals repeatedly and passively focus on their depression symptoms and the symptoms’ probable reasons and outcomes (Shaw et al., 2019). Engaging in ruminative behaviors does not lead to effective problem solving.
The online depression community (ODC) has become a popular resource for people with depression to manage their mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study proposed a novel perspective based on response style theory to investigate whether depression individuals’ distractive and ruminative behaviors in ODC were related to social support received and co-rumination. Furthermore, we explored the influences of social support and co-rumination on suicidal behaviors using panel data set. We collected text data from 22,286 depressed users of a large ODC in China from March 2020 to July 2021, and conducted text mining and econometrics analyses to test our research questions. The results showed that depression users’ online ruminative behaviors had a positive relationship with the co-rumination and had a negative relationship with social support received. Besides, constructive distractive behaviors (i.e., providing social support to others) increased the support users received from others but had a negative relationship with co-rumination. Depression users' future suicidal behaviors are influenced by past received social support and co-rumination. The received social supports and co-rumination have a negative and positive influence on depression users' future suicidal behaviors, respectively. Our results enrich the application of response style theory in online medicine. They provide meaningful insights into behaviors that influence the acquisition of online social support and the incidence of online co-rumination in ODCs. This study helps relevant institutions to conduct more targeted online suicide interventions for depression patients.
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Research has confirmed the strong associations of neuroticism with internalizing psychopathology, such as mood and anxiety disorders (Hakulinen et al., 2015; Jeronimus et al., 2016; Kotov et al., 2010) and to a lesser extent, with suicidal thoughts (Brandes & Tacket, 2019; Brezo et al., 2006). In addition, neuroticism/negative affect has also been proposed to be etiologically involved in the development of rumination (Hyde et al., 2008; Sachs-Ericsson et al., 2014; Shaw et al., 2019), so rumination has usually been considered as a mediator between neuroticism and depression (e.g., Barnhofer & Chittka, 2010; Kuyken et al., 2006; Lyon et al., 2021; Roelofs et al., 2008). Neuroticism has not only been considered as an antecedent but also as a moderator of several risk factors for psychopathology.
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Participants were 3482 undergraduates from U.S, Spain, Argentina, and the Netherlands. Path analysis and multi-group analysis were conducted.
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ReviewThe developmental origins of ruminative response style: An integrative review

Highlights

Abstract

Graphical abstract

Section snippets

The conceptualization and measurement of rumination

Developmental factors associated with rumination

The emergence and consolidation of ruminative response style

Conclusions, future directions, and clinical implications

Role of funding sources

Contributors

Declaration of competing interest

Acknowledgements

Clinical Psychology Review

Journal of Psychosomatic Research

Anxiety Disorders

Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry

Child Abuse & Neglect

Behaviour Research and Therapy

Cortex

Biological Psychiatry

Personality and Individual Differences

Personality and Individual Differences

Clinical Psychological Review

Personality and Individual Differences

Journal of Affective Disorders

Journal of Adolescent Health

Maternal influences on youth responses to peer stress

Developmental Psychology

An examination of the response styles theory of depression in third- and seventh-grade children: A short-term longitudinal study

Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology

A test of the integration of the response styles and social support theories of depression in third and seventh grade children

Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology

Factorial categorization of depression-related constructs in early adolescents

Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy

Role of parenting and maltreatment histories in unipolar and bipolar mood disorders: Mediation by cognitive vulnerability to depression

Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review

Pubertal development, emotion regulatory styles, and the emergence of sex differences in internalizing disorders and symptoms in adolescence

Clinical Psychological Science

When mental inflexibility facilitates executive control: Beneficial side effects of ruminative tendencies on goal maintenance

Psychological Science

Pathways to depressive symptoms in young adults: Examining affective, self-regulatory, and cognitive vulnerability factors

Psychological Reports

A kid-friendly tool to assess rumination in children and early adolescents: Relationships with mother psychopathology and family functioning

Journal of Child and Family Studies

From external regulation to self-regulation: Early parenting precursors of young children's executive functioning

Child Development

Early adolescent gender differences in the use of ruminative and distracting coping strategies

Journal of Early Adolescense

Subtypes of rumination is adolescence: Associations between brooding, reflection, depressive symptoms, and coping

Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology

Attention and self-regulation: A control-theory approach to human behavior

Personality development: Stability and change

Annual Review of Psychology

Genetic and environmental influences on adolescent rumination and its association with depressive symptoms

Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology

Equifinality and multifinality in developmental psychopathology

Development and Psychopathology

Emergence of attributional style and its relation to depressive symptoms

Journal of Abnormal Psychology

Coping with stressful events in older children and young adolescents

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

Response styles to sadness are related to sex and sex-role orientation

Sex Roles

The influence of child gender role and maternal feedback to child stress on the emergence of the gender dIfference in depressive rumination in adolescence

Developmental Psychology

Accounting for sex differences in depression through female victimization: Childhood sexual abuse

Sex Roles

Metacognitive emotion regulation: Children's awareness that changing thoughts and goals can alleviate negative emotions

Emotion

The association between depressive symptoms and executive control impairment in response to emotional and non-emotional information

Cognition & Emotion

The role of executive functioning in adolescent rumination and depression

Cognitive Therapy and Research

Patterns of children's coping with stress: Implications for clinicians

American Journal of Orthopsychiatry

The relationship between adolescent rumination and maternal rumination, criticism and positivity

Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy

Children's response styles and risk for depression and anxiety: Developmental and sex differences

How genome-wide association studies (GWAS) made traditional candidate gene studies obsolete

Review
The developmental origins of ruminative response style: An integrative review