Dissociable Associations of Facets of Mindfulness with Worry, Rumination, and Transdiagnostic Perseverative Thought

Abstract

Perseverative thought (PT) is a major mechanism of anxiety and related forms of psychopathology. Although mindfulness-based interventions show promise for reducing PT, treatment development is hindered by an incomplete understanding of the relationships between dissociable facets of mindfulness (present-moment awareness; nonjudgment of experience; nonreactivity to experience) and those of PT (worry; rumination; shared perseverative tendencies). The present study tested and replicated hypothesized relationships between facets of PT and mindfulness in three well-powered, independent samples (N = 289 undergraduate; N = 255 crowdsourced; N = 261 anxious/depressed community). Consistent with predictions, greater present-moment awareness incrementally predicted lower transdiagnostic PT, as did nonjudgment and nonreactivity. Nonreactivity was specifically inversely related to trait worry (i.e., beyond variance shared with transdiagnostic PT, rumination, and other mindfulness facets), while nonjudgment was specifically related to rumination (brooding). Findings replicated across all samples. In two samples, greater present-moment awareness unexpectedly predicted higher worry when other facets were controlled. Taken together, findings establish and replicate a link between present-moment awareness to general perseverative tendencies, with specific inverse relationships of nonreactivity and nonjudgment to worry and rumination, respectively. Future experimental research should test hypothesized causal pathways to inform theoretical models and development of transdiagnostic and personalized treatments.

Worry alters speed-accuracy tradeoffs but does not impair sustained attention

“…When facets were examined separately, only Acting with Awareness, which taps present-moment attention (Baer et al, 2006), was robustly and independently related to performance. These findings are consistent with predictions from theoretical models that place present-moment attention at the center of the mindfulness construct (e.g., Baer et al, 2006;Lindsay & Creswell, 2017), and other empirical work from our group demonstrating a robust incremental relationship of present-moment attention to transdiagnostic perseverative thought (Thompson et al, 2019). Important strengths of the present research include the use of a well-characterized sustained attention task; consideration of speed-accuracy tradeoffs; a neutral control condition that ruled out several methodological and theoretical alternative explanations; and a withinsubjects, multiple-block design that both increased statistical power and prevented dissipation of…”

“…Finally, previous studies have focused rather narrowly on trait worry when considering potential moderators of the effects of worry on cognition (Beckwé & Deroost, 2016). Trait mindfulness, a multifaceted construct involving intentional, nonjudgmental attention to presentmoment experience (Baer et al, 2006;Creswell, 2017), is robustly related to perseverative thought and trait worry specifically (Thompson et al, 2019). In light of preliminary evidence of beneficial effects of mindfulness training on sustained attention (Morrison et al, 2014;but see Van Dam et al, 2018) and attentional disengagement from perseverative thought (Gu et al, 2015), efforts to clarify the relationships between mindfulness, worry, and cognition may prove fruitful.…”

Worry alters speed-accuracy tradeoffs but does not impair sustained attention

“…When facets were examined separately, only Acting with Awareness, which taps present-moment attention (Baer et al, 2006), was robustly and independently related to performance. These findings are consistent with predictions from theoretical models that place present-moment attention at the center of the mindfulness construct (e.g., Baer et al, 2006;Lindsay & Creswell, 2017), and other empirical work from our group demonstrating a robust incremental relationship of present-moment attention to transdiagnostic perseverative thought (Thompson et al, 2019).…”

A five-factor model of perseverative thought.

“…Finally, although the perseverative thought literature does not yet have an established and agreed-upon set of bordering constructs, we intentionally included two items that we would not expect to be endorsed in a well-specified framework, namely items related to mindfulness, which we conceptualize as in direct opposition to perseverative thought (e.g., Thompson et al, 2021). The complete list of features selected for inclusion is presented in Table 2.…”