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Apr 18, - Racing thoughts can create a frightening loop in your brain that feels difficult to escape. But they can happen any time you are in an anxious or stressed a pattern, consume time, and often have no rational conclusion. It does mean that you are anxious and that your stress level is higher than usual.
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This pattern of results suggests that during RT about negative content, RT with a searching, exploring purpose is associated with more constructive outcomes than is RT with a solving, making-sure purpose. In a prospective study examining outcomes for HIV-seropositive men who had experienced an AIDS-related bereavement, RT about the bereavement was associated with finding more meaning in the loss over the next 2—3 years, which in turn was associated with better immune responses and reduced AIDs-related mortality over a 7-year follow-up J.

Finding meaning was operationalized as a major shift in values, priorities, or perspectives in response to the loss. RT about bereavement was a necessary although not a sufficient condition for discovery of meaning and improved physical health. There is growing evidence from prospective longitudinal studies that finding benefit predicts better future psychological adjustment and more adaptive responses to negative life events than does simply trying to understand and make sense of the event C.

As described earlier, Ehring et al. RT is associated with better academic and workplace performance and is correlated with constructive problem solving and creativity.

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Second, after controlling for trait anxiety, worry is correlated with increased report of active behavioral problem solving and seeking more information in response to a recent stressful event Davey et al. Fourth, for survivors of physical assault, upward counterfactual fluency, assessed in terms of the number of different upward counterfactual thoughts generated about the trauma, was correlated with the generation of behavioral plans El Leithy et al.

Unfortunately, Brooding was not assessed, so it is not known whether the relationship between RT and creativity is unique to Reflective Pondering or not. After controlling for trait anxiety, worry prospectively predicts better academic performance during the 1st year of law school Siddique et al. On a laboratory arithmetic task, during a lab-based social interaction, or when pursuing their personal goals during an experience sampling methodology study, defensive pessimists performed better e.


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In contrast, there was little effect on performance of manipulating reflection in optimists. Thus RT on negative outcomes was constructive for defensive pessimists but not for optimists. There is evidence that the focus of attention during repetitive mental simulations influences the effectiveness of planning and self-regulation Taylor et al. This effect of process simulation versus outcome simulation on exam performance was mediated by a reduction in anxiety and by increases in planning.

Likewise, process simulations help to reduce the planning fallacy, in which participants tend to underestimate the time taken to complete tasks Taylor et al. Again, RT focused on planning, induced by working through a list of the concrete who, what steps necessary to plan a charity fundraiser, resulted in less dysphoric mood, better concentration, and more efficient performance on a subsequent reading task than did the standard rumination manipulation in dysphoric participants Lyubomirsky et al.

In participants with low self-esteem or high dysfunctional attitudes, increased trait rumination was associated with worse treatment outcomes, whereas for participants with moderate levels of self-esteem or low levels of dysfunctional attitudes, increased trait rumination predicted lower levels of depression symptoms post-treatment, even when controlling for symptoms pre-treatment. There is evidence from experimental studies suggesting that RT can have constructive consequences on aspects of cognition implicated in the onset and maintenance of depression.

Importantly, all variants retain the key elements of the original rumination manipulation, namely, repetitive focus on self, symptoms, and mood, but with instructions to adopt different styles of processing when focusing on the self. These cognitive processes are implicated in the onset and maintenance of depression Williams et al.

These findings suggest that RT focused on the direct experience of moods and feelings reduces patterns of cognitive processing implicated in increased vulnerability for depression relative to RT focused on the causes, meanings, and consequences of moods and feelings. It is important to note that both variants of rumination involved focus on negative content: Both repetitively focused attention on the feelings and symptoms of patients with current depression.

There is some preliminary evidence that RT is implicated in health-promoting behaviors. High worry was especially associated with a quit attempt in smokers with both high self-efficacy and beliefs that denied or rationalized away the risks associated with smoking. However, in ex-smokers with low self-efficacy and high denial beliefs, worry predicted a relapse back into smoking.

Reviewing the extant literature, it therefore appears that RT can be both helpful and unhelpful. Examining the literature reviewed, a number of properties emerge that potentially account for the distinct consequences of RT. These properties reflect both structural aspects of RT, such as the valence of thought content during RT, and process aspects, such as the level of construal concrete vs. Unsurprisingly, valence is important in determining the consequences of RT, both in terms of thought content positive vs.

For example, RT about the acceptance of an article that has had much work invested in it will have a very different and more positive affective quality than RT about the same article if it was rejected. There is considerable evidence that the valence of thought content is a major factor in determining whether RT is helpful or unhelpful. First, Segerstrom et al. Second, Martin and Tesser identified that rumination contains several subclasses or modes, including RT about positive content or about negative content. Moreover, depressive rumination was more strongly related to negative affect than was nonruminative self-focus.

Thus, RT focused on negative aspects of the self would have more negative consequences than RT focused on positive aspects of the self. Fourth, depressive rumination, the form of RT most convincingly implicated in causing unconstructive consequences, is conceptualized in terms of response to negative mood, and indexed by a measure RSQ that explicitly focuses on negative content, with items characterized by thinking about feelings and symptoms when feeling sad, down, and depressed. Consistent with this, the measure of RT used in the posttraumatic growth literature includes items that focus on positive gains e.

Sixth, the more pathological consequences found for Brooding could be a result of its particularly negative thought content, focused on self-evaluative analysis and self-critical judgment Treynor et al. Seventh, when the items of the RSQ were altered to de-emphasize evaluative, self-critical judgments, this Non-Judging Reflection scale was uncorrelated with depression symptoms, unlike the standard Reflection scale which was significantly correlated with depression.

Eighth, while rumination about negative content predicted depression in an 8-month longitudinal study, rumination about depression was no longer a significant predictor of depression after controlling for negative rumination Ito et al. Thus, the effects of rumination appear to depend on whether it is focused on negative or non-negative content.

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Ninth, the consequences of problem solving are known to depend on the valence of the problem orientation adopted. Thus, the valence of thought content during RT appears to be a key determinant of whether RT has constructive or unconstructive consequences. One mechanism by which valence may moderate the consequences of RT is by determining the direction of action for the magnifying effects of RT on mood and cognition.

It is argued that repetitive focus on affect and cognition serves to make them more salient and, to further elaborate, to consolidate and strengthen them. Thus, for negatively valenced cognitions, RT would amplify the negative consequences of these negative cognitions and exacerbate existing negative mood, resulting in more unconstructive outcomes.

With this amplification hypothesis in mind, it is worth noting that, while in the majority of cases more negative valence during RT will be associated with more unconstructive consequences, positive valence during RT could possibly lead to unconstructive consequences in individuals vulnerable to hypomania and mania.

Recent theories of bipolar disorder have hypothesized that repeated dwelling on positive affect could amplify positive mood and associated behavioral activation, fuelling the spiral of mood and cognition up into hypomania S. Johnson et al. Consistent with this hypothesis, compared with control participants with no history of mood disorders and individuals with major depression, individuals diagnosed with bipolar disorder endorsed elevated emotion-focused rumination in response to positive affect. Moreover, positive rumination was associated with hypomanic symptoms S.

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Although preliminary, these findings suggest a link between excessive positive rumination and bipolar disorder: Future research will need to examine its causal relationship with mania symptoms. The context in which repetitive thinking occurs is also an important determinant of the consequences of RT. Key elements of context are a the prevailing valence of the cognitive—affective system of the individual engaged in RT, in terms of mood state, self-beliefs, and dispositional traits; and b the situation and environment in which RT occurs.

Both contexts can range from negatively valenced e. For example, when an individual has low self-esteem or is in a dysphoric mood, negative thoughts, memories and expectations become more easily accessible and available, as illustrated by the phenomenon of mood-congruent memory G. Bower, ; Teasdale, , Similarly, a negative, stressful environment will activate negative thoughts and increase the likelihood of negative mood.

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Thus, by extension, in the context of a negative valenced intrapersonal or situational context, RT about this negative context which is itself negatively valenced would further amplify the effect of that context on mood and cognition. There is good evidence that the prevailing valence of an individuals' cognitive—affective system determines whether RT is helpful or unhelpful.

Second, in a similar way, there is evidence that the consequences of worry are moderated by the levels of trait anxiety: Worry is associated with more active coping and greater information seeking Davey et al. Trait anxiety is associated with poor problem-solving confidence Davey et al. Davey et al. Thus, there is good evidence to suggest that negative representations of the self and maladaptive beliefs about what is required to be a worthwhile person moderate whether RT is constructive or unconstructive.

In the absence of dysphoric mood or negative self-beliefs, RT focused on the self need not be negative; however, in the presence of negative mood or negative self-beliefs, RT focused on the self is likely to involve negative content. As suggested by Ciesla and Roberts , p. Similarly, there is good evidence that situational context can influence the effects of RT. First, Morrison and O'Connor found that depressive rumination interacted with reported stress to predict social dysfunction 6 months later.

Another aspect of context that influences the consequences of RT is an individual's ability and expertise. Greater competence, ability, practice, and expertise in the domain of concern are hypothesized to produce more constructive outcomes during RT. First, the defensive pessimism literature has found that RT is associated with constructive outcomes when RT is congruent with an individuals' preferred strategy, such that defensive pessimists find RT focused on negative outcomes an adaptive strategy but optimists do not.

Moreover, studies of defensive pessimism have explicitly selected participants on the basis of a history of success in the studied domain, whether academia or social interactions e. Thus, the benefit of RT for defensive pessimists occurs within the context of a reasonably high level of experience and ability.

Constructive and Unconstructive Repetitive Thought

Third, the more constructive consequences of RT for individuals with high self-esteem and high self-efficacy, may, in part, reflect greater objective ability as well as more positive subjective perceptions of the self. Thus, there is some evidence that personal ability and expertise may influence the consequences of RT. While valence is a major factor in determining the consequences of RT, it cannot explain all observed findings. It is hypothesized that another property that can account for whether RT has constructive or unconstructive consequences is the level of construal during RT.

Research on mental representation in the cognitive and social—cognitive literatures makes a distinction between higher level, abstract construals versus lower level, concrete construals e. High-level construals are abstract, general, superordinate, and decontextualized mental representations that convey the essential gist and meaning of events and actions, whereas low-level construals are more concrete mental representations that include subordinate, contextual, specific, and incidental details of events and actions. Thus, different levels of construal can be adopted when perceiving one's own and other's behavior: Inferences of global traits that are invariant across different situations e.

1. Remember that the worst-case scenario probably won't come to pass.

Across this review, there is evidence that RT characterized by high-level, more abstract construals has more unconstructive consequences relative to RT characterized by low-level, more concrete construals, at least when RT is focused on negatively valenced content to date, the majority of studies relevant to level of construal in RT have involved negatively valenced RT. First, within experimental studies that manipulate RT, one experimental condition is often characterized by lower level construals that focus on contextual details and the means to desired ends e.

Importantly, these manipulations of RT are often matched for degree of negative thought content, such that the distinct functional consequences cannot be due to differences in valence of thought content. Third, the current construal-level analysis subsumes the reduced concreteness theory of worry, which proposes that worry is predominantly experienced in a more abstract—verbal form rather than in a more concrete—visual imagery form and that this reduced concreteness leads to negative consequences for problem solving and affect regulation Borkovec et al.

Moreover, elaborations of problems about which participants worry are independently and blindly rated as more abstract and less concrete than those of problems about which participants do not worry Borkovec et al. Fourth, there is indirect evidence that level of construal could contribute to the beneficial effects of defensive pessimism. Lower level construals would in turn lead to more specific preparation for an upcoming task. One mechanism by which the level of construal may influence the consequences of RT is by influencing the efficacy of problem solving. A second mechanism by which level of construal may influence the consequences of RT is through its effects on self-regulation.


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Since elevated self-focused attention and increased efforts at self-regulation are often characteristic of RT, in particular of rumination and worry, RT may become more constructive as thinking becomes more concrete. Leary et al. For example, a basketball player would perform better when focusing on how to make the shot rather than when thinking about the implications of missing.

A third mechanism by which the level of construal may influence the consequences of RT is by influencing the degree of generalization in response to emotional events. Processing characterized by higher level construals produces mental representations that generalize across situations and that do not incorporate specific contextual details. However, in negative situations, more abstract construals could facilitate negative overgeneralizations where a single failure is explained in terms of a global personal inadequacy e.