Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Relation Between Rumination And Impaired Memory In Dysphoric Moods, Paula T. Hertel

Paula T Hertel

College students in dysphoric or nondysphoric moods studied pairs of words and later took a fragment-completion test of memory for targets from the pairs (under process-dissociation procedures for obtaining estimates of controlled and automatic retrieval; L. L. Jacoby, 1996). Between the study and test phases, some participants waited quietly for 7 min; others rated self-focused materials designed to invoke ruminations in the dysphoric group; and still others rated self-irrelevant and task-irrelevant materials. A dysphoria-related impairment in controlled retrieval occurred in the first 2 conditions but not in the 3rd condition. These results show that the nature of task-irrelevant thoughts contributes …

The Effects Of Rumination Induction On Attentional Breadth For Self-Related Information, Maud Grol, Paula T. Hertel, Ernst H.W Koster, Rudi De Raedt

Paula T Hertel

The attentional scope model of rumination describes the links between rumination and attentional breadth. The model postulates that a more narrow attentional scope, caused by negative mood, increases the likelihood that thoughts become repetitive on the same topic, which in turn could exacerbate negative mood and lead to more attentional narrowing. We experimentally tested this model by examining the attentional effects of rumination using a newly developed rumination- versus problem-solving induction. In the first experiment we found that only at high levels of trait rumination, induction of rumination compared to a problem-solving approach was associated with more attentional narrowing for …

Rumination: Cognitive Consequences Of Training To Inhibit The Negative, Shimrit Daches, Nilly Mor, Paula T. Hertel

Paula T Hertel

Background and Objectives: To explore cognitive factors in ruminative thinking, we assessed the effect of a single-session of inhibition training on subsequent biases in attention and interpretation.

Methods: We randomly assigned participants to either inhibit or attend to negative stimuli. Inhibition was assessed by using assessment trials embedded throughout the training, and interpretation bias was assessed following the training.

Results: Trait rumination moderated training effects on both measures. Low ruminators in the inhibition-training condition maintained their level of inhibition of negative stimuli, but those in the attention-training condition showed a non-significant trend for decreased inhibition. Participants also showed a transfer-congruent …

Cognition In Emotional Disorders: An Abundance Of Habit And A Dearth Of Control, Paula T. Hertel

Paula T Hertel

Emotional and other psychological disorders are categories of experience identified at least in part by the goal of having treatment plans for people in distress. Because the categories exist for such purposes, research efforts are organized to discover distinctions among the categories and between disordered and nondisordered individuals. Many of these distinctions are cognitive. When clinical scientists began experimental studies, the term “cognitive” had been used to refer primarily to conscious thoughts that characterize disorders (see Beck, 1976), but in more recent decades the term signifies an experimental approach framed according to the theories and paradigms of cognitive psychology. In …