The influence of rumination and defensiveness on negative affect in response to experimental stress

Previous experiments investigating the influence of rumination on negative affect have often manipulated the timing and content of rumination, which may be problematic as rumination is phenomenologically experienced as uncontrollable. In the present experiment, rumination was not manipulated, but measured as an individual tendency before the experiment. Furthermore, it was tested whether defensiveness would reduce the higher degree of negative affect often associated with rumination. Fifty-six participants completed questionnaires measuring rumination and defensiveness and participated in a phrase completion task, rating negative affect before and after the task. Correlational analyses showed that rumination was positively associated (p < 0.05) with affect responses (r range = 0.35-0.61), whereas defensiveness was negatively associated with affect responses (r range =-0.27-0.32). Four groups of high and low rumination and defensiveness scorers were created using median splits. An ANOVA showed that scoring high on defensiveness did not reduce the negative affect experienced by high ruminating participants.