Automaticity and depression: Daily mood-reactive rumination in people with and without depression history

Depressive rumination has been conceptualized as a mental habit that is initiated automatically without conscious awareness, intent, or control in response to negative mood. However, it is unknown whether depression vulnerability is characterized by elevated levels of mood-reactive rumination at the level of short-term dynamics. Using mobile ecological momentary assessment, formerly depressed individuals with a recurrent history of depression (n = 94) and nonclinical controls (n = 55) recorded in-the-moment affect and rumination 10 times daily over 6 days, after completing baseline measures of trait ruminative brooding, early life stress, and habitual characteristics of negative thinking (e.g., automaticity, lack of conscious awareness, intent, and control). Momentary fluctuations in negative affect were prospectively associated with greater rumination at the next sampling occasion in formerly depressed participants whereas this pattern of mood-reactive rumination was not observed in nonclinical controls. In formerly depressed participants, habitual characteristics of negative thinking was associated with greater mood-reactivity of rumination, particularly among those with a history of early life stress. Mood-reactive rumination was not, however, associated with depression course nor with the frequency of trait ruminative brooding. Rumination may be triggered in response to negative affect with a high degree of automaticity, making it difficult to control. Greater mood-reactivity of rumination might be associated with increased depression risk, independent of the depressive course and may be exacerbated by early life stress. Future studies may need to go beyond frequency and focus on the role of mood-reactivity and automaticity of ruminative thinking in depression vulnerability. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).