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Trait Rumination is Associated with Enhanced Recollection of Negative Words

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Abstract

Rumination is associated with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). To better understand this association, researchers have begun to investigate the relationship between rumination and cognitive biases that are linked to MDD. To date, several studies have found that rumination is related to negatively biased memory, but it is not clear whether this relationship is independent of depressive symptoms. To address this question, the present study examined 97 healthy Caucasian women between the ages of 18 and 25. Participants performed an encoding task of self-referent adjectives, followed by a recognition task. The recognition task utilized a remember/know paradigm to separately examine recollection-based memory and familiarity-based memory. Trait rumination was assessed using the ruminative response scale (RRS). Results indicate that high trait rumination is associated with selective enhancement of recollection for negative words compared to neutral words and a trend toward selective enhancement for recollection for negative words compared to positive words. Trait rumination does not affect biases in overall recognition sensitivity or familiarity.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by NARSAD Young Investigator Award 34676 to Wiveka Ramel and NIH R01 grant MH58147 to James Gross. We thank Sarah Herstad and Michael Mehler for help with participant recruitment, screening, and data collection, and Nicole Dudukovic for her helpful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3, Canada

    Janice R. Kuo

  2. School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Isabel G. Edge

  3. Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Wiveka Ramel, Emily M. Drabant, William M. Dayton & James J. Gross

  4. University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Michael D. Edge

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  1. Janice R. Kuo
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  2. Isabel G. Edge
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  3. Wiveka Ramel
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  5. Emily M. Drabant
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  7. James J. Gross
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Correspondence to Janice R. Kuo.

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Kuo, J.R., Edge, I.G., Ramel, W. et al. Trait Rumination is Associated with Enhanced Recollection of Negative Words. Cogn Ther Res 36, 722–730 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-011-9430-7

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