Ruminative Inertia and Its Association With Current Severity and Lifetime Course of Depression

Abstract

Rumination has been consistently shown to play a critical role in the severity and course of depression. Relatively understudied, however, is the nature of rumination across time and how individual differences in the temporal dynamics of rumination may be related to depression. In this study, we investigated the association between ruminative inertia (the degree to which rumination levels are resistant to change from day to day) and both current and past depression in a clinical sample. Participants ( N = 71) completed daily-diary surveys for 3 weeks. Ruminative inertia was positively associated with current depressive symptoms and negatively associated with the number of past depressive episodes. These findings suggest that more severe depressive symptoms are associated with rumination that is more resistant to change over time, whereas a greater number of past depressive episodes is related to less ruminative inertia. Additional research is needed to explore the directionality of these effects.