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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Jan 22.
Published in final edited form as: J Exp Psychopathol. 2014;5(3):302–313. doi: 10.5127/jep.038113

Cognitive Control and Rumination in Youth: The Importance of Emotion

Lori M Hilt a, Brian T Leitzke b, Seth D Pollak b
PMCID: PMC4303251  NIHMSID: NIHMS653195  PMID: 25621147

Abstract

Rumination involves the tendency to passively dwell on negative emotions along with their meanings and consequences. Susan Nolen–Hoeksema demonstrated the role of rumination in the development of several forms of psychopathology and suggested that cognitive control may be one factor that makes some individuals more prone to ruminate than others. Studies with adults have consistently found that rumination is associated with cognitive control difficulties, especially related to switching and inhibiting emotional information. Because rumination predicts psychopathology by adolescence, the present study examined whether ruminating youth would show similar cognitive control difficulties. Fifty–two adolescents completed two tasks from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery and reported on their depressive symptoms and tendency to ruminate. There was no effect of rumination on a task measuring general cognitive flexibility. However, rumination was associated with difficulty inhibiting negative information when switching from negative to positive blocks on an Affective Go/No–go task. Results suggest both similarities and differences compared to adult studies and are discussed in terms of clinical implications for the prevention and treatment of psychopathology.

Keywords: rumination, adolescence, cognitive control, executive processes, depression, CANTAB, emotion regulation

Introduction

Susan Nolen–Hoeksema first investigated rumination, the tendency to passively dwell on negative emotions along with their meanings and consequences, as a mechanism to explain the preponderance of depression in women (Nolen–Hoeksema, 1987; 1991). Later, she and others demonstrated that rumination was in fact a transdiagnostic risk–factor implicated in many forms of psychopathology (Nolen–Hoeksema & Watkins, 2011). In addition to establishing the role of rumination in the development of psychopathology, Nolen–Hoeksema investigated processes that might explain why some people are more prone to ruminate than others. One such process that was identified was cognitive control (Davis & Nolen–Hoeksema, 2000). Since Davis and Nolen–Hoeksema's demonstration that adults who ruminate make more perseverative errors on a general cognitive task, several other studies have suggested that adults who ruminate also have difficulty with cognitive flexibility (e.g., Hertel & Gerstle, 2003; Whitmer & Banich, 2007). Despite this large body of research, little work has examined cognitive control in the context of rumination among younger individuals. Rumination is operative in childhood and reliably predicts depression by adolescence (Rood, Roelofs, Bogels, Nolen–Hoeksema, & Schouten, 2009); therefore, examining cognitive control among young adolescents who ruminate offers an important opportunity to investigate this putative mechanism before severe psychopathology is likely to have developed.

Rumination and Cognitive Control among Adults

Studies with adults have shown that rumination is associated with perseverative errors that likely reflect difficulties with executive functioning (e.g., Davis & Nolen–Hoeksema, 2000; Watkins & Brown, 2002). Theories of rumination suggest that the ruminative process may result from a weakened inhibition system that allows these intrusive thoughts into working memory (e.g., Linville, 1996). In support of this, a study comprising an unselected sample of adults showed that ruminators’ cognitive control problems appear to be related to a specific difficulty inhibiting a previous set (Whitmer & Banich, 2007, Experiment 1). Another study showed that while ruminators made more errors on a goal–shifting task, they actually made fewer errors on a Stroop task that involves goal maintenance (Altamirano, Miyake, & Whitmer, 2010). These findings point to the possibility that ruminators may have difficulty with attentional inhibition, because inhibition of a previous set is required in order to shift to a new set. Further evidence that these difficulties may involve trouble with attentional inhibition come from a study where ruminators showed difficulty inhibiting orientation towards an abrupt cue during an eye tracking task (De Lissnyder, Derakshan, De Raedt, & Koster, 2011).

Studies of depressed or dysphoric individuals have also found that rumination is associated with cognitive control difficulties, mostly related to inhibition and set switching. In these studies, inducing rumination (through instructions for self– and emotion–focused thinking, e.g., Think about why you feel the way you do) resulted in worse performance on cognitive tasks. Among depressed individuals, this type of rumination induction resulted in worse performance on a switching task compared to those induced to distract (Whitmer & Gotlib, 2012). In another study, a rumination induction resulted in a stereotyped counting response among depressed participants during a random number generation task (Watkins & Brown, 2002). Finally, another study found that induced rumination resulted in worsened performance on the Stroop task among dysphoric participants (Philippot & Brutoux, 2008).

Taken together, these studies suggest that rumination is associated with cognitive control difficulties that may be specifically related to difficulty in inhibition or set switching. Inhibition and switching are related executive functions (e.g., Arbuthnott & Frank, 2000), as inhibition of a previous set is required to switch to a new set; however, these two processes are distinguishable. It is noteworthy that these studies all involved tasks with neutral (i.e., non– emotional) stimuli. Because rumination involves a passive, perseverative focus on negative emotions, one might expect cognitive control difficulties to be more pronounced on tasks with negatively–valenced stimuli.

Rumination and Cognitive Control Over Emotional Information Among Adults

Several studies have examined the relationship between rumination and cognitive control among adults using tasks that include emotional stimuli. These studies tested the hypothesis that ruminators would perform worse on tasks requiring the inhibition of negative information. Two studies of depressed adults found support for this hypothesis. In one study, rumination was associated with difficulty removing task–irrelevant negative words from working memory in a modified Sternberg task (Joormann & Gotlib, 2008), and in the other, rumination was associated with a lack of inhibition of negative information during a negative affective priming task (Joormann & Gotlib, 2010).

Studies with non–clinical samples of adults have also found that rumination is associated with poor cognitive control over emotional information. One study of unselected college students showed that those reporting high levels of rumination were not successful at inhibiting irrelevant emotional words in an affective priming task (Joormann, 2006). Another study of unselected college students found that rumination was associated with an impaired ability to refresh target words when emotional words were also presented (Bernblum & Mor, 2010). These effects have been demonstrated with a variety of tasks including a Working Memory Selection Task (Zetsche, D'Avanzato, & Joormann, 2012), where participants have to update working memory by discarding no–longer relevant material, an Affective Shift Task (De Lissnyder, Koster, Derakshan, & De Raedt, 2010) where participants have to perform an odd–face–out decision based on a cue presented prior to the stimuli, and an Internal Shift Task (De Lissnyder, Koster, & De Raedt, 2012) where participants have to keep track of either gender or emotion during the presentation of faces.

Taken together, these studies show that rumination is associated with difficulty inhibiting emotional information, especially negative information. Because studies have largely looked at either general cognitive control or cognitive control over emotional information, it is difficult to know whether cognitive control problems among ruminators are more pronounced on tasks involving emotional stimuli. Studies that include different types of trials (i.e., neutral and emotional) suggest that rumination is in fact associated with greater cognitive control difficulties related to processing emotional information relative to neutral information (e.g., De Lissnyder et al., 2010, 2011; Demeyer, De Lissnyder, Koster, & De Raedt, 2012).

It is also noteworthy that these effects appear to be specific to rumination and not depression level. While poor cognitive control has been found to predict levels of depression after one year among remitted depressed adults, this effect was fully mediated by rumination (Demeyer et al., 2012). Additionally, several other studies have found that effects for rumination hold when controlling for depression level (e.g., Bernblum & Mor, 2010; De Lissnyder et al., 2010), and some studies did not find cognitive control effects for depression level, but did for rumination (e.g., Zetsche et al., 2012, De Lissnyder et al., 2012). Thus, studies conducted to date with adults from both clinical and unselected samples suggest that rumination is specifically associated with cognitive control impairments that involve inhibition, especially of negative emotional information.

The Importance of Studying Youth

Although a large literature has emerged suggesting a relationship between rumination and cognitive control, few studies have examined this among younger samples. Doing so is important for several reasons. Adolescence is a period of marked development of psychopathology, in particular depression (Twenge & Nolen–Hoeksema, 2002), and the relationship between rumination and cognitive control may be instrumental in furthering the understanding of this development. Studies of youth who self–reported on their tendency to ruminate show a reliable relationship between rumination and depression by adolescence (Rood et al., 2009). In addition to depression, several other forms of psychopathology linked to rumination are especially prominent in adolescence. These include both anxiety (McLaughlin & Nolen–Hoeksema, 2011) and escapist behaviors such as eating disorders, substance abuse, and self–injury (Hilt, Cha, & Nolen–Hoeksema, 2008; Nolen–Hoeksema, Stice, Wade, & Bohon, 2007). Understanding the relationship between rumination and cognitive control in youth may provide an earlier look into the progression of these disorders.

There is also good reason to be cautious about generalizing adult findings to youth. In a study investigating age– related differences in emotion regulation, young adolescents were less successful at regulating their responses to social stimuli than were adults, suggesting that adolescents may have differential abilities in appraising social and emotional information relative to adults (Silvers, McRae, Gabreli, & Gross, 2012). Additionally, although adult studies of depression find fairly consistent cognitive biases, studies of youth have been more mixed (e.g., Neshat– Doost, Moradi, Taghavi, Yule, & Dalgleish, 2000). These examples suggest that conclusions about the relationship between cognitive control and rumination among youth should be based on empirical evidence using youth samples.

To date, we are aware of few studies directly examining the relationship between cognitive control and rumination among youth. A few studies done by our group have examined attentional biases and rumination among children and adolescents. One found that performance on a measure of attention in preschool predicted rumination in adolescence under certain contexts (Hilt, Armstrong, & Essex, 2012). Another study found that rumination moderated the impact of child maltreatment on attention biases toward sad faces on a dot–probe task such that high–ruminating maltreated children demonstrated a bias toward sad faces while low–ruminating maltreated children did not (Romens & Pollak, 2012). Recently, we also showed that young adolescents who ruminated following an interpersonal stressor were characterized by an attention bias away from happy faces on a dot–probe task (Hilt & Pollak, 2013). Because attention is a component of cognitive control, these studies provide preliminary evidence that rumination is related to cognitive control among youth. However, studies examining the relationship between rumination and general cognitive flexibility and control over inhibition of emotional information and switching is lacking.

The Present Study

To address these gaps in the literature, we sought to explore the relationship between rumination and cognitive control among an adolescent sample. We chose two different tasks. Both tasks rely upon cognitive control, but one of the tasks taps general flexibility in this control, whereas the other relies upon the inhibition of emotional information. If adolescents are similar to adults, we predicted that those with a greater tendency to ruminate would perform worse than low ruminators on the first task involving flexibility of cognitive control. We also predicted that adolescents with greater ruminative tendencies would demonstrate difficulties in inhibiting negative emotional information, particularly when switching sets. We expected these effects to hold controlling for depression, suggesting a specificity for rumination.

Method

Participants and Procedure

Fifty–two youth (76% girls) participated in the present study. Participants were recruited via advertisements and posters for a study on emotions in youth. They ranged in age from 9 years, 5 months to 16 years, 2 months (M = 12.91, SD = 1.31). We choose this age range because youth can reliably self–report by age 9, and to generally capture the developmental period before the sharp increase in depression typically emerges (Hankin et al., 1998; Twenge &Nolen–Hoeksema, 2002). Racial–ethnic distribution was 79% Caucasian, 11% African–American, 8% Asian–American, and 2% Hispanic. Annual family income was reported by a parent and ranged from less than 5,000 U.S. dollars to greater than $200,000 (median = $80,000 – 90,000).

The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Informed consent was obtained from the child's parent and assent was obtained from all youth. Parents provided demographic information. Participants completed cognitive control tasks followed by self–report measures during a single visit to the laboratory. They were compensated with a small prize.

Measures

Cognitive control tasks

Participants completed selected tasks from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB; Cambridge Cognition, Cambridge, United Kingdom), a computerized battery that has been used in many studies of youth. Youth first completed two brief practice tasks to familiarize them with the touch screen and press pad. Next, they completed a non–emotional shifting task to measure general cognitive flexibility followed by an affective go/no–go task to measure inhibition of emotional information.

Intra–Extra Dimensional Set Shift

The Intra–Extra Dimensional Set Shift test (IED) is a computerized analogue of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and was used to examine general cognitive control during a non–emotional task. The dimensions include color– filled shapes and white lines, with simple stimuli including only one of these dimensions and complex stimuli including both. Participants are presented with two color–filled shapes and must indicate the correct response by touching it on the screen. The correct response is learned through feedback, and after six correct responses, the rule and/or stimuli change. Shifts are intra–dimensional first (i.e., only color–filled shapes) and then switch to extra– dimensional (ED, i.e., white lines).

Affective Go/No–go

The Affective Go/No–go (AGN) is a task that requires maintenance and inhibition of emotional information. This task involves trials where a word is presented in the center of the screen for 300 ms followed by a 900 ms interstimulus interval, during which time participants press a bar for correct targets (i.e., positive words during positive trials or negative words during negative trials). In each block, some trials involve distractors (i.e., negative words during positive trials, or positive words during negative trials). Participants are told to respond as fast as possible without making mistakes. The task consists of 2 practice blocks followed by eight recorded blocks (2 positive, 2 negative, 2 positive, and 2 negative) consisting of 18 trials each. In addition to valence, blocks vary according to shift (e.g., a positive block following a negative block or vice versa) or non–shift (e.g., a positive block following a positive block). Response time is recorded for correct trials (i.e., mean correct latency) along with omission errors (i.e., failing to respond for a correct target word) and commission errors (i.e., responding to a distractor word). We were only interested in commission errors for the present study. Responses that occurred within the first 100 ms for any trial were excluded. Due to technical difficulties, 3 participants’ data were not recorded for this task.

Rumination

We assessed rumination using the 13–item rumination subscale from the Children's Response Style Questionnaire (CRSQ; Abela, Brozina, & Haigh, 2002). For each item, youth are asked to rate how often they respond in that way when they feel sad on a 4–point Likert scale (0 = almost never, 1 = sometimes, 2 = often, 3 = almost always). Sample items include: Think about a recent situation wishing it had gone better and Think “Why can't I handle things better?” Items were totaled and divided by the number of items to form an average rumination score. The reliability and validity of the CRSQ, as well as its subscales, have been demonstrated in several studies (e.g., Abela et al., 2002; Abela, Aydin, & Auerbach, 2007). Although the rumination scale typically used with adults comprises two factors (brooding and reflection; Treynor, Gonzales, & Nolen–Hoeksema, 2003), the CRSQ rumination scale comprises a single rumination factor (Abela et al., 2007). We modified the directions slightly to ask children to respond based on what they do when they feel sad or stressed in order to examine rumination as a response to distress, in line with current conceptualizations (Nolen–Hoeksema, Wisco, & Lyubomirsky, 2008) and as has been done with other studies of youth (e.g., Burwell & Shirk, 2007). The CRSQ rumination scale demonstrated excellent reliability in this study (α = .87).

Depressive symptoms

Youth completed the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI; Kovacs, 1992), a 27–item self–report measure of depressive symptoms that has been standardized on children and adolescents aged 7–17 years. Each item consists of three statements (e.g., I am sad once in a while, I am sad many times, I am sad all the time) representing different levels of severity of a specific symptom of depression (e.g., depressed mood) or a consequence of depressive symptoms (e.g., social rejection). Items are assigned a numerical value from 0 (symptom absent) to 2 (symptom present and severe), and higher scores indicate higher levels of depression. The CDI has sound psychometric properties, including internal consistency (Reynolds, 1994), test–retest reliability, and discriminant validity (Kovacs, 1992). Internal consistency for the present sample was good (α = .82).

Results

After examining variables for normality, we used a square root transformation to normalize rumination scores, which were positively skewed. For the IED, we conducted a regression analysis for stages completed and one for errors with rumination and depression scores as predictors. For the AGN, we used a mixed ANOVA model to predict commission errors, with two continuous between–subjects factors (Rumination and Depression scores) and two within–subjects factors (Valence: positive, negative and Shift: shift, non–shift). We predicted a 3–way Rumination X Valence X Shift interaction. Means and standard deviations are presented in Table 1.

Table 1.

Means and Standard Deviations

Means Standard Deviations
    Gender (% girls) 76%
    Age 12.91 1.31
    Depressive Symptoms 4.23 4.49
    Average Rumination .72 .57
    IED Task
    Number of stages completed 8.49 .80
    Total errors 18.89 12.95
AGN Task
    Commissions Non-shift, Positive 4.92 4.17
    Commissions Non-shift, Negative 4.80 4.55
    Commissions Shift, Positive 5.08 4.07
    Commissions Shift, Negative 5.20 4.13
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Note. IED = Intra-Extra Dimensional Set Shift; AGN = Affective Go/No-go.

General Cognitive Control

To examine the relationship between rumination and general cognitive control during a non–emotional task, we examined rumination as a predictor of IED outcomes, controlling for depression. Because the task involves switching rules throughout, if youth are similar to adults, we would predict higher rumination to be associated with fewer stages completed and more errors. Neither of the models was significant (see Table 2). The overall pattern provided no evidence for a relationship between rumination and cognitive control on this non–emotional task.

Table 2.

Intra-Extra Dimensional Set Shift Regression Outcomes

Outcomes Model Statistics Predictors β t
Stages Completed Adj. R2 = .03, p = .184
Depressive Symptoms −.28 −1.66
Rumination .27 1.64
Total Errors Adj. R2 = −.03, p = .753 −.55
Depressive Symptoms −.09 .34
Rumination .126 −.55
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Cognitive Control Over Emotional Information

Next we examined whether rumination was associated with cognitive control during an emotional task by examining performance on the AGN (see Table 3). Because of theory and previous research, we were most interested in examining evidence for difficulty with inhibition. Commission errors involve responding to positive words during negative blocks or responding to negative words during positive blocks, and we expected this to offer the most direct evidence for inhibition difficulty. General inhibition problems would involve more commission errors across blocks. Negative inhibition problems would involve more commission errors on positive blocks (when negative words are distractors). General switching problems would involve commission errors on shift blocks. Therefore, we examined whether rumination was associated with difficulty inhibiting negative information in the context of switching which would involve more commission errors on positive shift blocks compared to positive non–shift blocks.

Table 3.

Affective Go/No-go Commission Errors Model

Predictors F-value p-value Partial η2
Depressive Symptoms 1.77 .190 .04
Rumination .00 .984 .00
Valence 2.94 .093 .06
Valence X Depressive Symptoms .27 .606 .01
Valence X Rumination 1.82 .184 .04
Shift 1.57 .217 .03
Shift X Depressive Symptoms 1.60 .212 .03
Shift X Rumination .02 .893 .00
Valence X Shift 3.50 .068 .07
Valence X Shift X Depressive Symptoms 1.96 .168 .04
Valence X Shift X Rumination 6.42 .015 .12
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There was a significant Rumination X Valence X Shift interaction, F(1, 46) = 6.42, p = .015, ηp2=.12. We followed up this 3–way interaction by creating rumination variables at one SD above and below the mean and testing the mixed ANOVA model to examine the 2–way interaction between Valence and Shift. There was no Valence X Shift interaction for rumination at 1 SD below the mean, F(1, 46) = .93, p = .339; however, there was a significant Valence X Shift interaction for rumination at 1 SD above the mean, F(1, 46) = 4.70, p = .035. Because we predicted that rumination would be associated with difficulty inhibiting negative information in the context of switching, we compared commission errors on positive non–shift blocks (requires inhibiting negative information without switching) to positive shift blocks (requires inhibiting negative information following a negative block). This analysis revealed a significant effect for Shift, F(1, 46) = 4.72, p = .035, where higher rumination was associated with more commission errors on positive shift blocks (M = 5.16, SE = .58) than positive non–shift blocks (M = 4.98, SE = .60). There was no effect of Shift within negative blocks, F(1, 46) = .69, p = .412, suggesting the inhibition difficulty was specific to negative stimuli interfering when switching from a negative block to a positive block.

Discussion

Because rumination is associated with psychopathology by adolescence, yet research on cognitive control and rumination has generally focused only on adults, the goal of the present study was to examine whether young ruminators would display similar cognitive control difficulties as has been documented among adult ruminators. In line with the adult literature, rumination among youth was associated with cognitive control difficulty during an emotional task, i.e., rumination was associated with difficulty inhibiting negative emotional information when switching from negative to positive blocks. However, contrary to findings among adults, rumination among youth was not associated with difficulty on a general (i.e., non–emotional) test of cognitive flexibility.

Although studies of adult ruminators have documented cognitive control impairments on both neutral and emotional tasks, results appear to be stronger for tasks involving emotional information (e.g., De Lissnyder et al., 2010, 2012). We predicted that rumination among youth would be associated with difficulty inhibiting negative information when switching from a negative to a positive block, and results supported this. Specifically, rumination was associated with incorrectly responding to negative distractors during positive blocks that followed negative blocks, suggesting that youth who ruminate more experience more interference from negative information, especially when shifting. This task involved updating the contents of working memory with each shift, and rumination was associated with interference when shifting from a block where negative information is maintained in working memory to one where positive information is maintained in working memory. This may help explain why rumination (which involves keeping negative information in working memory) is difficult to disengage from. This finding is consistent with adult studies showing an association between rumination and reduced inhibition of negative information (e.g., Joormann & Gotlib, 2008, 2010). It is noteworthy that this is the first study we are aware of that specifically examined the relationship between rumination and cognitive control in a young adolescent sample, and the size of the effect was medium to large in magnitude according to Cohen's conventions.

While previous research with adults has demonstrated that rumination is associated with worse performance on general, non–emotional goal–shifting tasks (e.g., Altamirano et al., 2010; Davis & Nolen–Hoeksema, 2000), the current study found no such differences. There are several explanations for this discrepancy: differences in tasks used to assess cognitive control, differences between youth and adults, or other differences in the samples. The task we used, the Intra–Extra Dimensional Set Shift, is considered an analog to the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, used by Nolen–Hoeksema and Davis. Thus, although the tasks are different, this explanation is unlikely to account for the different findings. In addition to age differences, the sample in our study may have a more restricted range of rumination scores compared to adult studies because of our method of participant selection. We recruited an unselected sample rather than choosing participants based on particularly high or low rumination scores (e.g., Davis & Nolen–Hoeksema, 2000). Thus, the lower levels of rumination reported in our sample could possibly account for the lack of association between rumination and general cognitive control; however, some studies of adults have found that rumination was related to general cognitive control difficulties even among participants without extreme levels of rumination (e.g., Whitmer & Banich, 2007, Experiment 2).

If the lack of association between rumination and general cognitive control is accounted for by participants’ younger age or developmental level, it may point to a potential direction of effects. For example, persistent rumination may gradually decrease cognitive control abilities. Experimental studies with adults have demonstrated that induced rumination depletes cognitive resources (e.g., Watkins & Brown, 2002). Cognitive control is also reduced following depressive episodes (e.g., Vanderhasselt & De Raedt, 2009). Thus, it is possible that the general cognitive control impairments observed in adult ruminators could be due to “scars” from previous rumination and/or experiences with low mood. On the other hand, Nolen–Hoeksema posited that cognitive control processes confer a proneness to rumination, suggesting a different direction of effects (Davis & Nolen–Hoeksema, 2000). In support of this, Demeyer et al. (2012) found that cognitive control impairments predicted increased rumination and depressive symptoms one year later. Additionally, a birth–cohort study found that sustained attention on a general cognitive control task during preschool was associated with rumination in adolescence (Hilt et al., 2012). Based on the limited experimental and prospective research conducted to date, it appears that the relationship between cognitive control and rumination may be bi–directional. Perhaps the association between rumination and difficulty with cognitive control over negative emotional information among youth in the present study will predict more pervasive cognitive control problems in the future. This line of inquiry will be an important avenue for future research.

Importantly, our findings related to cognitive control over emotional information appear to be specific to rumination, and not depression levels. By co–varying depression scores in our analyses, we saw that there was no effect of depression symptom level on performance in the Affective Go/No–go task. The specificity regarding rumination in the current study may help to explain why rumination is a transdiagnostic risk–factor implicated in the development of several different emotional disorders, not just depression (Nolen–Hoeksema et al., 2008). While the effects of rumination and cognitive control on the development of depression has been demonstrated among adults (e.g., Demeyer et al., 2012), the question remains whether cognitive control and rumination confer unique or synergistic effects in the development of depression and other forms of psychopathology among adults and youth.

It is also important to consider limitations of this study when interpreting findings. As noted above, our sample may have been limited by a restricted range of rumination scores which could have limited power to detect effects on the general cognitive control task. The age–range of our sample was rather large (7 years), yet we did not have sufficient power to examine possible age–related effects (e.g., whether effects for older adolescents are stronger or more similar to adults). Also, because this study was an initial examination of patterns of general cognitive control and control over emotional information in youth who ruminate, we chose one task to assess each rather than include a fine–grained analysis of different types of inhibition difficulties (Zetsche et al., 2012). Following up from this study, it will be important to use paradigms and methods that allow for a more detailed examination of the relationship between rumination and cognitive control over emotion among youth. Finally, it is important to note the generalizability of findings may be limited to non–clinical youth, and future work should examine cognitive control among clinical samples of youth as well.

Whether difficulties in cognitive control over emotion precede or follow the development of ruminative tendencies, targeting them may offer an important avenue for the prevention and treatment of psychopathology. Rumination's role in the development of several forms of psychopathology suggest that targeting it or other closely related processes could have a large public health impact. Studies that increase cognitive control through direct training (e.g., Siegle, Ghinassi, & Thase, 2007) and mindfulness techniques (e.g., Ramel, Goldin, Carmona, & McQuiad, 2004) have shown a reduction in both rumination and depression. Additionally, cognitive bias modification (CBM) studies have shown promise in reducing depression, and especially anxiety (Hallion & Ruscio, 2011). It would be interesting to see if one mechanism of CBM is reduction in rumination.

In conclusion, the current study found evidence that rumination is associated with difficulties in cognitive control over emotional information among a sample of youth. Just as rumination increases negative mood, negative mood, in turn, increases rumination (e.g., Nolen–Hoeksema et al., 2007). Difficulty with cognitive control over emotional information may underlie this vicious cycle. Because these difficulties are already apparent by adolescence in a non–clinical sample, early prevention efforts would be optimal. Identifying youth with specific cognitive risk factors such as rumination or poor cognitive control over emotional information and studying how these factors relate to the emergence of psychopathology throughout development may enhance our understanding of the optimal points and timing of appropriate and effective preventive interventions. This study adds to the growing literature largely inspired by Susan Nolen–Hoeksema's impressive body of work regarding the ruminative process and extends findings on cognitive control to a younger sample than has been previously studied. Because both similarities and differences emerged relative to adult findings, it is important to consider the relationship between rumination and cognitive control within a developmental context.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Barb Roeber, Natalie Walker, Jordin Barber, and Austin Kayser for help with data collection.

Funding was provided by National Institute of Mental Health grant R01-MH061285 to SDP; BTL was supported by T32-MH018931-23.

LMH would like to acknowledge the tremendous support of Susan Nolen-Hoeksema throughout my graduate training and beyond. Susan's own work as a graduate student, examining attributional style among youth, strongly influenced my desire to study cognitive mechanisms in the development of depression. I was fortunate to work with her during my graduate training at Yale, where she generously devoted time and resources to help me complete my dissertation examining bio-psycho-social processes involved in rumination among young adolescents. Susan was an exceptional mentor and a champion for students. Her support was instrumental as I began my career, and she is greatly missed.

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