A Novel Measure of Real-Time Perseverative Thought

Perseverative thinking (PT), or repetitive negative thinking, has historically been measured using global self-report scales. New methods of assessment are needed to advance understanding of this inherently temporal process. We developed an intensive longitudinal method for assessing PT. A mixed sample of 77 individuals ranging widely in trait PT, including persons with PT-related disorders (generalized anxiety disorder, major depression) and persons without psychopathology, used a joystick to provide continuous ratings of thought valence and intensity following exposure to scenarios of differing valence. Joystick responses were robustly predicted by trait PT, clinical status, and stimulus valence. Higher trait perseverators exhibited more extreme joystick values overall, greater stability in values following threatening and ambiguous stimuli, weaker stability in values following positive stimuli, and greater inertia in values following ambiguous stimuli. The joystick method is a promising measure with the potential to shed new light on the dynamics and precipitants of perseverative thinking.

• Publication year

  2021

• Venue

  Clinical psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science

• Publication date

  2021-08-31

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1177/21677026211038017PMID 35959247PMCID PMC9365247
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Are rumination and neuroticism genetically or environmentally distinct risk factors for psychopathology?

  2019cited by this paper
• The "Brightening" Effect: Reactions to Positive Events in the Daily Lives of Individuals With Major Depressive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

  2019cited by this paper
• The Nature, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Neuroticism: Back to the Future

  2018cited by this paper
• Sjplot - Data Visualization For Statistics In Social Science.

  2018influential reference
• Emotion dynamics.

  2017cited by this paper
• A theoretical and empirical modeling of anxiety integrated with RDoC and temporal dynamics.

  2017cited by this paper
• Assessing maladaptive repetitive thought in clinical disorders: A critical review of existing measures.

  2017cited by this paper
• Personal Sensing: Understanding Mental Health Using Ubiquitous Sensors and Machine Learning.

  2017cited by this paper
• Resolving Ambiguity in Emotional Disorders: The Nature and Role of Interpretation Biases.

  2016cited by this paper
• Enhancing the Personalization of Psychotherapy With Dynamic Assessment and Modeling

  2016cited by this paper
• Cognitive Behavioural Processes Across Psychological Disorders A Transdiagnostic Approach To Research And Treatment

  2016cited by this paper
• When Thinking Impairs Sleep: Trait, Daytime and Nighttime Repetitive Thinking in Insomnia

  2015cited by this paper
• The relation between short-term emotion dynamics and psychological well-being: A meta-analysis.

  2015cited by this paper
• Metacognitions, worry and sleep in everyday life: Studying bidirectional pathways using Ecological Momentary Assessment in GAD patients.

  2015cited by this paper
• Rumination predicts heightened responding to stressful life events in major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.

  2015cited by this paper
• Diagnostic Checking in Regression Relationships

  2015influential reference
• Rumination and Worry in Daily Life

  2015cited by this paper
• Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4

  2014influential reference
• Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th ed.

  2014cited by this paper
• R: A language and environment for statistical computing.

  2014influential reference
• Positive emotion dysregulation across mood disorders: how amplifying versus dampening predicts emotional reactivity and illness course.

  2013cited by this paper
• Common Versus Unique Variance Across Measures of Worry and Rumination: Predictive Utility and Mediational Models for Anxiety and Depression

  2013cited by this paper
• Getting stuck in depression: The roles of rumination and emotional inertia

  2012cited by this paper
• Hooked on a feeling: rumination about positive and negative emotion in inter-episode bipolar disorder.

  2011cited by this paper
• Emotional reactivity to daily events in major and minor depression.

  2011cited by this paper
• The Perseverative Thinking Questionnaire (PTQ): Validation of a content-independent measure of repetitive negative thinking

  2011cited by this paper
• Perseverative thought: a robust predictor of response to emotional challenge in generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder.

  2011influential reference
• A taxometric investigation of the latent structure of worry: dimensionality and associations with depression, anxiety, and stress.

  2010cited by this paper
• An initiation-termination two-phase model of worrying.

  2010cited by this paper
• Are worry, rumination, and post-event processing one and the same? Development of the repetitive thinking questionnaire.

  2010cited by this paper
• Anhedonia in Unipolar Major Depressive Disorder: A Review~!2009-10-26~!2010-02-18~!2010-04-08~!

  2010cited by this paper
• Anxiety disorder

  2010cited by this paper
• Looking on the bright side: accessing benign meanings reduces worry.

  2009cited by this paper
• What is an anxiety disorder?

  2009cited by this paper
• Ruminative Self-Focus and Negative Affect

  2008cited by this paper
• Rethinking Rumination

  2008cited by this paper
• A meta-analysis of emotional reactivity in major depressive disorder.

  2008cited by this paper
• Inducing and modulating intrusive emotional memories: a review of the trauma film paradigm.

  2008cited by this paper
• Constructive and Unconstructive Repetitive Thought

  2008influential reference
• Responses to Positive Affect: A Self-Report Measure of Rumination and Dampening

  2008cited by this paper
• Ruminative Responses to Negative and Positive Affect Among Students Diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder

  2008cited by this paper
• An analysis of post-event processing in social anxiety disorder.

  2008cited by this paper
• Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

  2008cited by this paper
• Repetitive negative thinking as a transdiagnostic process

  2008influential reference
• Post-event processing in social anxiety.

  2007cited by this paper
• The Role of Rumination and Reduced Concreteness in the Maintenance of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Depression Following Trauma

  2007cited by this paper
• Intrusive thoughts, obsessions, and appraisals in obsessive-compulsive disorder: a critical review.

  2007cited by this paper
• The effects of worry and rumination on affect states and cognitive activity.

  2007cited by this paper
• Fear, Anxiety, Depression, and the Anxiety Disorder Spectrum: A Psychophysiological Analysis

  2007cited by this paper
• Alternate cardiovascular baseline assessment techniques: vanilla or resting baseline.

  2007cited by this paper
• The perseverative cognition hypothesis: a review of worry, prolonged stress-related physiological activation, and health.

  2006cited by this paper
• Cognitive vulnerability to emotional disorders.

  2005cited by this paper
• The circumplex model of affect: An integrative approach to affective neuroscience, cognitive development, and psychopathology

  2005cited by this paper
• Emotion as a thermostat: representing emotion regulation using a damped oscillator model.

  2005cited by this paper
• The tie that binds? Coherence among emotion experience, behavior, and physiology.

  2005cited by this paper
• Adaptive and maladaptive ruminative self-focus during emotional processing.

  2004cited by this paper
• Experience and appraisal of worry among high worriers with and without generalized anxiety disorder.

  2004cited by this paper
• Cognitive Behavioural Processes Across Psychological Disorders: A Transdiagnostic Approach To Research And Treatment

  2004cited by this paper
• Rumination Reconsidered: A Psychometric Analysis

  2003cited by this paper
• The Theoretical Status of Latent Variables

  2003cited by this paper
• Cognitive biases in emotional disorders: Information processing and social-cognitive perspectives: Series in Affective Science

  2003cited by this paper
• The theoretical status of latent variables.

  2003cited by this paper
• A component analysis of cognitive-behavioral therapy for generalized anxiety disorder and the role of interpersonal problems.

  2002cited by this paper
• Modern applied statistics with S, 4th Edition

  2002influential reference
• Worry: daily self-report in clinical and non-clinical populations.

  2001cited by this paper
• A taxometric investigation of the latent structure of worry.

  2001cited by this paper
• The role of rumination in depressive disorders and mixed anxiety/depressive symptoms.

  2000cited by this paper
• Depressogenic cognitive styles: predictive validity, information processing and personality characteristics, and developmental origins.

  1999cited by this paper
• Private self-consciousness and the five-factor model of personality: distinguishing rumination from reflection.

  1999cited by this paper
• Affective Style and Affective Disorders: Perspectives from Affective Neuroscience

  1998influential reference
• Self-perpetuating properties of dysphoric rumination.

  1993cited by this paper
• A questionnaire for the measurement of nonpathological worry

  1992cited by this paper
• Responses to depression and their effects on the duration of depressive episodes.

  1991cited by this paper
• Development and validation of the Penn State Worry Questionnaire.

  1990cited by this paper
• Cognitive models of depression.

  1987cited by this paper
• Preliminary exploration of worry: some characteristics and processes.

  1983cited by this paper
• Depression: Clinical, Experimental, and Theoretical Aspects

  1968cited by this paper
• A RATING SCALE FOR DEPRESSION

  1960cited by this paper
• The assessment of anxiety states by rating.

  1959cited by this paper

• Repetitive negative thinking as a transdiagnostic cognitive process

  2025cites this paper
• Examining the Effects of a Brief, Fully Self-Guided Mindfulness Ecological Momentary Intervention on Empathy and Theory-of-Mind for Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Randomized Controlled Trial

  2024cites this paper
• Predictors of psychosocial impairment in a transdiagnostic sample: Unique effects of repetitive negative thinking.

  2024cites this paper
• Investigating the Impact of Smartphone Addiction on Perseverative Thinking among Pakistani University Students: A Case of Islamabad

  2023cites this paper
• Using spreading activation to understand repetitive negative thinking

  2023cites this paper
• Perseverative thinking is associated with features of spoken language.

  2023cites this paper
• A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship Between Worry and Rumination

  2022cites this paper