The impact of mood-induction on maladaptive thinking in the vulnerability for depression

Mind-wandering, and specifically the frequency and content of mind-wandering, plays an important role in the psychological well-being of individuals. Repetitive negative thinking has been associated with a high risk to develop and maintain Major Depressive Disorder. We here combined paradigms and techniques from cognitive sciences and experimental clinical psychology to study the transdiagnostic psychiatric phenomenon of repetitive negative thinking. This allowed us to investigate the adjustability of the content and characteristics of mind-wandering in individuals varying in their susceptibility to negative affect.

Participants high (n = 42) or low (n = 40) on their vulnerability for negative affect and depression performed a Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) after a single session of positive fantasizing and a single session of stress induction in a cross-over design. Affective states were measured before and after the interventions.

After stress, negative affect increased, while after fantasizing both positive affect increased and negative affect decreased. Thoughts were less off-task, past-related and negative after fantasizing compared to after stress. Individuals more susceptible to negative affect showed more off-task thinking after stress than after fantasizing compared to individuals low on this.

In this cross-over design, no baseline measurement was included, limiting comparison to 'uninduced' mind-wandering. Inclusion of self-related concerns in the SART could have led to negative priming.

Stress-induced negative thinking underlying vulnerability for depression could be partially countered by fantasizing in a non-clinical sample, which may inform the development of treatments for depression and other disorders characterized by maladaptive thinking.