Temporal dynamics of rumination in daily life: a multi-method investigation of attentional control and metacognitive...

Rumination is a central mechanism in depression maintenance. A substantial body of research indicates that deficits in attentional control and positive metacognitive beliefs jointly contribute to this depressive rumination. However, these studies have been largely confined to cross-sectional and between-person designs, limiting their ability to capture the dynamic, within-person fluctuations of these relationships and leaving the within-person pathways through which they influence rumination and mood poorly understood.

We employed a multi-method design. Study 1 used cross-sectional path analysis (N = 329) to test rumination as a mediator between attentional control (focusing/shifting), positive metacognitive beliefs, and depressive symptoms. Study 2 implemented a 14-day Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA; N = 135, 70 timepoints/person) analyzed with Dynamic Structural Equation Modeling (DSEM) to examine contemporaneous (t) and lagged (t-1) effects.

Cross-sectional results from Study 1 revealed rumination served as a mediator in the relationships between both attentional control (focusing/shifting) and positive metacognitive beliefs with depressive symptoms. DSEM in Study 2 revealed a temporal cascade: positive metacognitive beliefs and impairments of attentional control (focusing/shifting) predicted the increase of rumination at same time-point; rumination, in turn, further predicted an increase in negative affect both concurrently and at the subsequent time-point.

These findings suggest that rumination serves as within-person dynamic pathways through which attentional control deficits and positive metacognitive beliefs predict elevated depressed mood. This temporally ordered process provides evidence for the cognitive mechanisms underlying depressed mood fluctuations and may inform future research on time-sensitive intervention frameworks.