Tristen Hastings

1
The Effect of Reflective Processing versus
Rumination on Emotional Responses to Sad
Memories Influence of Pre-existing Depressive
Symptoms and Ruminative Tendencies
Tristen Hastings Wendy Wolfe
Participants in the immersed condition were
prompted to visualize the memory as if it was
reoccurring and to focus on the reasons behind
the emotions they experienced whereas,
participants in the distanced condition were
prompted to visualize the memory as if they were
watching it occur from a bystanders perspective
and to focus on the reasons behind the emotions
of the distant them. Participants were then
asked to write a brief description of the memory
and complete measures for implicit and explicit
sadness, as well as depression and rumination.
Implicit sadness was measured utilizing a word
completion task in which seven out of twenty-five
items could be completed by using either a sad or
a neutral word. Explicit sadness was measured
utilizing the PANAS however, sadness was added
as an additional item in the measure. The BDI-II
was used as a measure for depression, and the
Scott-McIntosh Rumination Inventory (i.e., SMRI)
was utilized as a measure for rumination.
The GLM also revealed a significant interaction
between condition and past psychotherapy
treatment on implicit sadness, F(1) 6.83, p lt
.05. The nature of the interaction is depicted
in Figure 2.
Introduction


Tendencies toward ruminative thought processes
are oftentimes found to occur in conjunction with
recurrent depressive symptoms. Due to dysphoric
mood, these thought processes are characterized
by a negative bias that intensifies depressive
symptoms. This self-defeating cycle is common in
depression and suggests a need for therapeutic
techniques designed to provide alternative coping
responses for depression, other than rumination.
Consequently, there is need for a treatment
technique that affords the patient the
opportunity for constructive, reflective
processing while minimizing problematic
rumination. In 2005, a therapeutic technique
based on the benefits of reflective processing
was introduced with regard to aggression by
Kross, Ayduk, and Mischel. They postulated that
when attempting to work through negative
emotions, highly reactive, emotional individuals
tend to review autobiographical memories from an
immersed perspective whereas, calm, analytical
individuals tend to review autobiographical
memories from a distanced perspective. They
formulated a technique designed to teach
individuals to adopt a distanced perspective as
opposed to an immersed perspective when
reflecting upon anger-eliciting memories.
Results indicated that participants in the
distanced condition exhibited significantly less
anger than participants in the immersed
condition. The purpose of the present study
was to investigate the efficacy of this technique
on emotions commonly associated with depression
as well as the influence pre-existing depressive
symptoms and ruminative tendencies have upon
ones ability to maintain the distanced
perspective. We hypothesized individuals in the
distanced condition would exhibit significantly
less sadness than participants in the immersed
condition. In addition, we hypothesized
participants with pre-existing depressive
symptoms and/or ruminative tendencies would
exhibit more difficulty maintaining the distanced
perspective than other participants.
Results
The memory summaries were scored and separated
into concrete construals and abstract construals
based on the number of what statements and
self-blame attributions (i.e., concrete
construals) as well as metacognitive insight
statements and metacognitive closure
statements (i.e., abstract construals). A
construal index was then calculated from these
scores by subtracting abstract construal scores
from concrete construal scores. An independent
samples t test on construal index scores
indicated a main effect of condition, t(111)
-2.86, p lt .01. As expected, participants in the
immersed condition (M 0.71) used more concrete
construals compared to abstract construals in
their summaries than participants in the
distanced condition (M 0.24). Next,
multivariate tests using the general linear model
procedure were run. Surprisingly, results
indicated no main effect of condition on any of
the dependent variables. The GLM did, however,
indicate a significant interaction between
condition and SMRI scores on implicit sadness,
F(1) 5.06, p lt .05. The nature of the
interaction is depicted in Figure 1.
Discussion
The significant difference in construal index
scores between conditions indicates participants
were able to maintain the perspective they were
instructed to adopt during the sad memory task.
However, our hypothesis that implicit and
explicit sadness scores would differ depending on
condition was not supported. Interestingly, the
interaction between rumination scores and
condition suggests that the memory manipulation
worked as expected (when it came to implicit
emotional memory), but only for low ruminators.
Thus, while results indicated that, despite ones
ruminative tendencies, participants were able to
maintain the assigned perspective, adopting a
distanced perspective did not appear to buffer
individuals with ruminative tendencies from
experiencing an increase in negative affect when
contemplating a sad memory. Given the role of
ruminative tendencies on the effect of the memory
manipulation, a possible explanation for our
findings is the unequal distribution of SMRI
scores across the two memory conditions. It
appears that participants with a history of
psychotherapy were also particularly impacted by
the immersed condition in terms of higher sad
responses on the implicit task. Perhaps they were
accessing sadder memories or perhaps therapy made
them more vulnerable to being overwhelmed by past
emotionally charged events (when immersed back in
that memory). The fact that the analyses
revealed no main effects involving the explicit
measure of sadness is puzzling, although it may
be an indication that implicit memory provides a
more sensitive measure of mood change.
Participants
The current study recruited 114 Armstrong
Atlantic State University undergraduate students
enrolled in introductory psychology courses.
Participants were randomly assigned into either
the distanced-why or immersed-why conditions.
Each condition contained 57 participants and were
equivalent in terms of sex, age, race and
depressive symptomatology. However, a post-hoc
t-test revealed that participants assigned to the
distanced-why (M 43.4) group had higher
scores on a measure of ruminative tendencies than
participants assigned to the immersed-why (M
41) group, t(112) 2.03, p lt .05.
Method
Participants were instructed to retrieve a
memory of an interpersonal experience that
elicited feelings of intense sadness and regret
from either an immersed or distanced perspective.
For further information, contact the first author
undergraduate, Tristen Hastings at
tg2101_at_students.armstrong.edu

Poster
presented at the Association for Behavioral and
Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) 42nd Annual
Convention, Orlando, FL (11-15-08).