Past research has shown that rumination exacerbates dysphoric mood whereas distraction attenuates it. This research examined whether the practice of mindfulness meditation could reduce dysphoric mood even more effectively than distraction. A dysphoric mood was induced in 139 female and 38 male participants who were then randomly assigned to a rumination, distraction, or meditation condition. As predicted, participants instructed to meditate reported significantly lower levels of negative mood than those in either of the two other conditions. Distraction was associated with a lessening of dysphoric mood when compared to rumination but was not as effective as mindfulness meditation. The implications of these findings are discussed.
In this study, rumination, depression, and gender role were measured in a group of fourth through sixth graders once each year for 3 years. Results supported the primary hypothesis that rumination level would best predict level of depression at each subsequent assessment. No differences were observed between genders on depression or rumination. However, masculineand femniniiie-identified adolescents had higher depression scores than androgynous individuals, and feminineidentified adolescents had the highest rumination scores overall. Links between rumination, depression, inability to distract, and gender role are explored, and possible treatments are discussed.
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