Elsevier

Behavior Therapy

Volume 43, Issue 3, September 2012, Pages 629-640
Behavior Therapy

Rumination, Worry, Cognitive Avoidance, and Behavioral Avoidance: Examination of Temporal Effects

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2011.11.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Recently, cross-sectional research has demonstrated that depressive rumination is significantly associated with the tendency to engage in cognitive and behavioral avoidance. This evidence suggests that rumination may be the result of attempts to avoid personally threatening thoughts, in a manner suggested by multiple contemporary theories of worry. This investigation examined the temporal relationship among daily levels of cognitive avoidance, behavioral avoidance, rumination, worry, and negative affect. Seventy-eight adolescents completed baseline questionnaires and then electronically completed daily measures of rumination, worry, behavioral avoidance, and cognitive avoidance, as well as sad and anxious affect for 7 days. Lagged-effect multilevel models indicated that increases in daily sadness were predicted by greater daily rumination and cognitive avoidance. Increases in daily anxiety were predicted by greater daily rumination, worry, and both cognitive and behavioral avoidance. Further, both daily rumination and worry were positively predicted by daily cognitive, but not behavioral, avoidance. Mediation analyses suggested that rumination mediated the effect of cognitive avoidance on both sadness and anxiety. Also, worry mediated the effect of cognitive avoidance on anxiety. Implications for models of avoidance, rumination, and worry are discussed.

Highlights

► Temporal relations among daily rumination, avoidance, and sad mood were tested. ► Adolescents (n = 78) completed electronic questionnaires for seven days. ► Cognitive avoidance predicted later rumination and worry. ► Rumination and worry mediated the effects of cognitive avoidance on sadness and anxiety.

Section snippets

The Present Study

This study aimed to examine the causal relationship among daily reported rumination, avoidance, and affect in a sample of community adolescents. We made the following hypotheses: First, daily levels of rumination will predict subsequent increases in levels of daily sadness. Second, cognitive and behavioral avoidance will predict increases in daily rumination given the positive association demonstrated previously (see Moulds et al., 2007). Third, rumination will mediate the temporal association

Participants and procedure

One hundred and one adolescents ages 14–18 (mean age = 16.73, SD = 1.33) participated in the study. The adolescents were 60.7% female. The adolescents were 92.3% Caucasian, 2.6% biracial, 3.8% Native American, and 1.3% other. Participants were recruited in their high school and invited to participate in a study about thoughts, feelings, and stressors that adolescents typically encounter on a daily basis. For those interested in participating, consent was obtained from parents and assent from the

Results

We first fit an initial model with sadness as the dependent variable and sadness assessed the previous day in order to examine the proportion of variance in changes in sadness that reflects between- and within-subjects variation. This model regressed the dependent variable, sadness (at time t) on an intercept, sadness at time t-1, a within-subjects (Level 1) residual, and a between-subjects (Level 2) residual (see Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002, p. 100). Results indicated that approximately 72% of the

Discussion

The goal of this investigation was to examine the temporal relations among daily rumination, worry, and avoidance, as well as sad and anxious affect in a sample of adolescents. Our analyses revealed an interesting chain of influence among these constructs. Daily cognitive avoidance was predictive of both increases in subsequent rumination and anxiety. In contrast, behavioral avoidance was predictive of later anxiety, but not sadness. Further, both rumination and worry were predicted by earlier

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