| The literature shows that rates of depression increase in adolescence and early adulthood. One documented contributor to depressive symptoms during this time period is co-rumination, which is defined as the excessive discussing of personal problems with a close friend. Co-rumination, however, has also been shown to lead to adaptive outcomes, specifically greater relationship satisfaction. In this study, I examined why co-rumination leads to both maladaptive (e.g., depressive symptoms) and adaptive (e.g., relationship satisfaction) outcomes through the examination of potential mediating variables. Rumination and excessive reassurance-seeking were hypothesized to mediate the relationship between co-rumination and depressive symptoms, whereas self-disclosure was hypothesized to mediate the relationship between co-rumination and relationship satisfaction. Additional analyzes examined the moderating effect of gender for the alpha and beta indirect pathways of the mediating models, utilizing Preacher, Rucker, & Hayes' (2007) moderated-mediation methodology. This study was cross-sectional and included 164 undergraduate students who completed a 20-30 minute online survey. Participants were 78% female, 22% male, and had a mean age of 19.08 years old (SD = 1.52). Results indicated that rumination (z = 3.33, p < .01) and excessive reassurance-seeking (z = 2.12, p < .05) both independently accounted for the relationship between co-rumination and depressive symptoms. However, when testing the mediators jointly, only rumination remained a significant mediator (95% confidence interval for indirect effect: .03 to .12). Gender was found to moderate only the indirect effect of rumination and depressive symptoms, in that the relationship between rumination and depressive symptoms was significant only for females (coefficient = .56, p = .02; 95% confidence interval: .03 - .15). Findings suggest that rumination, particularly for females, should be the target of intervention, as it explains co-rumination's link to depression. Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (Teasdale et al., 2000) is one such intervention that may minimize ruminative processes. Although excessive reassurance-seeking's effects on the relationship between co-rumination and depressive symptoms were eclipsed by rumination, the results suggest that there are interpersonal processes at play in corumination. Thus, future research should examine other interpersonal correlates of corumination may help explain how co-rumination displays a unique effect on depression, separate from rumination. |
