The development of a trait measure of ruminative thought

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1 PERSONALITY AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES PERGAMON Personality and Individual Differences 26 (1999) = = = = = = = The development of a trait measure of ruminative thought V.B. Scott, Jr a *, W.D. Mclntosh b a Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University b Department of Psychology, Georgia Southern University Received 6 August 1997 Abstract A 9-item questionnaire was designed to measure rumination. This questionnaire measures three distinct facets of rumination: emotionality, motivation, and distraction. Together, these factors measure the extent to which people engage in thoughts regarding their progress toward their goals. In Study 1, an exploratory factor analysis of an initial 28 items was used to reveal the underlying structure of the rumination construct. In Study 2, a confirmatory factor analysis revealed support for the hypothesized factor structure proposed by Study 1. Following the suggestions of PROC CALIS (SAS) for model modification, an acceptable model was found that retained 9 items (3 on each factor). Studies 3 and 4 demonstrate the predictive validity of the rumination inventory. Study 3 provides evidence of a correlation between distraction by ruminative thoughts and low scores on a statistics examination. Study 4 shows a negative correlation between distraction by ruminative thoughts and time taken to learn to solve a geometric puzzle Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Rumination; Measurement; Distraction; Goals; Social cognition 1. Ruminate (rui' me nat), v. Figurative, to turn over in the mind; meditate on Recent investigations have focused on how thoughts about future and/or past events can affect a person's social and emotional behavior (Wegner & Gold, 1995; Martin & Tesser, 1989; 1996; Nolen-Hoeksema, 1993). Particular interest has been shown toward the consequences of repetitive thought. Martin and Tesser (1989; 1996) for example have laid the groundwork for a theory of ruminative thought. Rumination, according to Martin and Tesser (1996) "is a class of conscious thoughts * Corresponding author. Present address. Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Armstrong Atlantic State University, Abercorn St, Savannah, GA 31419, U.S.A. Fax: (912) /98/$-see front matter O 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. AH rights reserved I'll: SOI 9 I-8809(98)

2 1046 V.B. Scott, W.D. Mclntosh / Personality and Individual Differences 26 (1999) that revolve around a common instrumental theme and that recur in the absence of immediate environmental demands requiring the thoughts..." (p. 12). In their article, Martin and Tesser (1996) discuss the importance of goals in driving ruminative thought. In their view, goals are one of the primary mechanisms by which ruminative thought occurs. More specifically, goal nonattainment and perceived lack of progress toward a goal will lead to negative rumination. Note that the term fantasy should be distinguished from the term rumination in the current work. Fantasy refers to the "thoughts and images people have when trying to cope with stressful experiences", (Raskin & Novacek, 1991, p. 493), while rumination, in the current context, refers to negative thoughts that result from blocked goal pursuits. 2. Types of rumination Martin and Tesser (1996) discuss rumination as being a ' broad class of thoughts' that consist of varying sub-types. First, they propose that rumination may be divided along the emotional valence of the thoughts, as either positive or negative. Second, they propose that rumination may be further subdivided by the focus of the thoughts, either attainment or discrepancy focus. Attainment focused thoughts are those that focus on goal attainment. That is, people can look at a goal from the perspective of how close they are to attaining it. On the other hand, discrepancyfocused thoughts focus on the potential problems that may block people's goal progress. Lastly, one can divide ruminative thoughts by the time period on which the thoughts are focused, either past, present, or future. The resulting intersection of these various types of focus results in twelve possible sub-classes of ruminative thought. Martin and Tesser (1996) describe only 10 types of ruminative thought because they believe that thoughts about an attained goal that are focused in the present or the future and are negative either rarely occur, or do not occur at all. They further state that if these types of thoughts do occur it is likely that people quickly switch from those thoughts to another mode of rumination. Ruminative thoughts have the potential to affect people in three areas. First, people can have emotional reactions to ruminative thoughts. Because ruminative thought can be engendered by failed attempts to reach important goals, this failure will often result in a negative affective reaction, no matter the content of the ruminative thoughts. The second effect pertains to the cognitive consequences of rumination. Rumination, no matter what sub-type, is expected to consume cognitive resources (Martin & Tesser, 1989). That is, any thought that enters into consciousness takes up cognitive resources. Because ruminative thoughts intrude into consciousness, rumination must take up cognitive resources. As a result of this consumption of cognitive resources, a decrement in cognitive performance should be observed anytime one experiences ruminative thought. Given that rumination takes up cognitive resources, it can be said that all rumination will distract people to some extent. Finally, rumination is expected to foster in people a motivation to stop ruminating. Perceptions of problematic progress toward a goal focuses people on voids in their lives. As a result, people are forced to recognize that they have not reached their full potential. This in turn leads to negative affect. People do not like to experience negative affect and will go to great lengths to try to avoid it (Wegner& Gold, 1995).

3 V.B. Scott, W.D. Mclntosh / Personality and Individual Differences 26 (1999) Even in cases where rumination does not necessarily lead to negative affect, people may be motivated to control the degree to which they ruminate. For example, when a young man finally gets a date with the attractive young woman he has been interested in for many months, he may be very happy and anticipate the upcoming date. Before long, however, he will realize that he has not been getting any work done and will try to stop the ruminative thoughts that are disrupting his work schedule. Thus, rumination, whether positively or negatively valenced, will often lead people to engage in behaviors that will reduce the ruminations. The current work is an attempt to create a paper-and-pencil measure of people's tendency to ruminate about failed goal pursuits. The questions are designed to tap into the three dimensions of this type of rumination: emotionality, distraction, and motivation. The emotionality component measures the degree to which people experience emotions in connection with ruminative thoughts about failed goal attempts. An example of a question measuring this component is "When I think about an important goal that I have not yet reached, it makes me feel sad". The distraction component measures the degree to which people are distracted by ruminative thoughts regarding their goals. An example of a question measuring this component is, "I often get distracted from what I'm doing by thoughts about something else". The motivation component measures the degree to which people are motivated to do something to reduce ruminative thoughts about failed goal attempts. An example of a question measuring this component is, "When I think about unaccomplished goals from my past, I become inspired to work on reaching them". In a series of studies, the final version of the rumination inventory was developed by successively paring down the number of items from a larger pool. Study 1 involved item selection and reliability assessment. Study 2 investigated the internal validity of the scale using confirmatory factor analysis and the construct validity using correlation analyses. Studies 3 and 4 explored the predictive validity of the scale by testing one of the theoretical assumptions of rumination. 3. Item selection and reliability study (study 1) 3.1. Method The initial set of 32 items was generated by the principal investigator and a research assistant. After a survey of the most comprehensive theoretical discussion of rumination (Martin & Tesser, 1989; 1996), a conscious attempt was made to generate items that would load on one of four factors: (1) Emotionality, (2) Motivation, (3) Distraction, or (4) Structure (i.e. the content of ruminative thought). Following a preliminary examination of the interpretability of the initial set of questions, we reduced the questionnaire to 28 items. We then conducted an exploratory factor analysis of the questionnaire to check its underlying structure Participants Seventy-three undergraduate students at North Carolina State University participated in the initial reliability study. Forty participants were introductory psychology students who, in return for their participation, received credit toward partial fulfillment of a research participation require-

4 1048 V.B. Scott, W.D. Mclntosh / Personality and Individual Differences 26 (1999) ment. The remaining 33 participants were members of a research methods and statistics course and participated with no tangible reward Materials and procedure The initial version of the SMRI was given to the introductory psychology participants in a classroom setting. The research methods participants completed the questionnaire overnight. The underlying structure of the questionnaire was then analysed using exploratory factor analysis. Alpha reliability coefficients were calculated as well Results Two different groups of participants responded to the questionnaire one group answered it overnight and the other answered it in a laboratory setting. There was no significant difference in rumination scores between those who completed the questionnaire at home (M ) v. in the lab (M = ), / < 1, ns. In addition, there were no differences in the scores on any of the subscales for the two groups, (all /-values < 1 using t for unequal ns). The 28-item version of the scale was submitted to an initial exploratory principal-axis factor analysis. This analysis revealed a pattern solution that would require retaining six factors using the proportion of variance accounted for by the factors criterion (set at 0.05). However, the scree plot indicated that only the first three factors would have an eigenvalue above the conventional 1.0 (Spector, 1992). Because a six factor solution was unsatisfactory, we used the information gained from an analysis of the overall a-score and from the exploratory factor analysis to reassess our conceptualization of the rumination construct. We decided to drop the items that were to make up the structure component, as they did not form a cohesive factor, nor did they seem to make any substantive contribution to the measurement of rumination. Following this item screening, a second exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the data using only the nine items that were to make up the final scale. This time, a satisfactory solution was reached, with three factors accounting for a total of 46, 41 and 28% of the variance in the dataset, respectively prior to rotation. Following varimax rotation, the eigenvalues of the three factors were 1.63, 1.32, and 1.20, respectively. In addition, the rotated factor pattern demonstrated simple structure. The items were said to load on a given factor if the factor loading was 0.40 or greater. Three different items loaded on each of the three factors (Table 1). The three components of rumination were found to be relatively orthogonal, as can be seen by the data presented in Table Validity study (study 2) Study 2 was conducted in an effort to validate the factor structure discovered by the initial exploratory factor analysis conducted in Study 1 as well as test the construct validity of the SMRI by comparing the scale to other scales that measure related concepts (e.g. the Perm State Worry Questionnaire and the Worry Domains Questionnaire). In order to properly evaluate the factor structure revealed by the exploratory factor analysis of Study 1, data were collected on a new sample of participants. The data were then subjected to a

5 V.B. Scott, W.D. Mclntosh I Personality and Individual Differences 26 (1999) Table 1 Factor loadings for the Scott-Mclntosh rumination inventory Principal factor ITEM Motivation Distraction Emotionality 1. There are some goals that are so important for me to attain that I am strongly motivated to reach them. 2. When I think about unaccomplished goals from my past, I become inspired to work on reaching them. 3. When I think about an important goal that I haven't yet reached, it inspires me to work harder to reach it. 4. I often get distracted from what I'm doing by thoughts about something else. 5. I seldom have difficulty concentrating on a current task.* 6. I rarely become 'lost in thought'.* 7. When I think about an important goal that I have not yet reached, it makes me feel sad. 8. I become angry when I think about goals that I have not yet reached. 9. I rarely get upset at myself when I am having problems reaching important goals.* 0.68 (0.42) 0.68 (0.62) 0.82 (0.91) (0.76) 0.53 (0.69) 0.72 (0.45) (0.68) 0.71 (0.76) 0.56 (0.52) Note: First row of factor loadings are from the exploratory factor analysis, n = 73. The factor loadings in parentheses are the corresponding factor loadings from the confirmatory factor analysis and all are significant at p < 0.001, n = 140. Items marked with an asterisk (*) were reverse coded for analysis. confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modeling to discover whether the model proposed by Study 1 would hold in Study Method Participants Two hundred introductory psychology students at North Carolina State University participated in return for partial fulfillment of one of their course requirements. Due to missing data, 60 participants were dropped from the study. Therefore, 140 students were included in the data analysis Measures Questionnaire packets containing the following questionnaires were provided to each participant Worry Worry was measured using The Penn State Worry Questionnaire (Meyer, Miller, Metzger & Borkovec, 1990) and the Worry Domains Questionnaire (Tallis, Eysenck & Matthews, 1991). The

6 1050 V.B. Scott, W.D, Mclntosh / Personality and Individual Differences 26 (1999) Table 2 Means, standard deviations, intercorrelations, a reliability scores for the Scott-Mclntosh rumination inventory and its subscales M SD Rum Emot Mot Dist Study V Rumination Emotionality Motivation Distraction (0.60) 0.65** 0.55** 0.63** (0.68) (0.77) (0.68) Study 2 b Rumination Emotionality Motivation Distraction (0.57) 0.75** 0.40** 0.63** (0.69) * (0.67) (0.66) Note: d n = 73; b n = 140. *p<0.05; **p<0.01. Cronbach's a for each scale in parentheses in diagonals. Penn State Worry Questionnaire is a 16-item trait measure of worry. It shows high test-retest reliability (0.92), and internal consistency (0.94). The Worry Domains Questionnaire was designed to measure different domains of worry content, including (1) Relationships, (2) Lack of Confidence, (3) Aimless Future, (4) Work Incompetence, (5) Financial Worry, (6) Socio-Political Worry. The WDQ showed high internal consistency in the current study (0.91). Both the PSWQ and the WDQ have been shown to be valid as they both are correlated with trait anxiety and state anxiety (Tallis etal., 1991) Fear of sadness Fear of sadness was measured using the Fear of Sadness Test (Zanakos & Wegner, 1994). The Fear of Sadness Test is a 16-item measure of the degree to which a person dreads experiencing unhappiness and negative thoughts. The FOST has been found to have high reliability (Cronbach's a = 0.83) Cognitive interference Cognitive interference was measured using The Thought Occurrence Questionnaire (TOQ; Sarason, Sarason, Keefe, Hayes & Shearin, 1986). The TOQ is a 28-item trait measure of cognitive interference. It has test-retest reliability of 0.81 and Cronbach's a reliability of The TOQ has been shown to have predictive validity in that it has been demonstrated to be capable of discriminating between good and poor performance on anagrams (Study 4; Sarason et al., 1986) Linking Linking was measured using the Linking Questionnaire (Mclntosh, Harlow & Martin, 1995). Linking is the degree to which people believe happiness is contingent upon reaching certain goals

7 V.B. Scott, W.D. Mclntosh I Personality and Individual Differences 26 (1999) in one's life. The linking scale has an a reliability of It has also been found to be useful in predicting depression and physical complaints (Mclntosh et al., 1995) Trait anxiety Trait anxiety was measured using the short form of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg & Jacobs, 1983). The short form consists of 10 of the original 20 items and has a Cronbach's a. of Social desirability Social desirability was measured using the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Inventory (Reynolds, 1982) Neuroticism Neuroticism was measured using the Neuroticism subscale (N-scale) of the Eysenck Personality Inventory (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1968). The EPI is a personality assessment measure consisting of three subscales; the N-Scale, the Introversion/Extraversion scale, and the Lie scale. The N-scale is a measure of negative affectivity, featuring 24 items such as: "Do you worry about awful things that might happen?" and "Do you find it hard to take 'no' for an answer?". The a reliability of the EPI-N for this sample was Depression Depression was measured using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI; Beck, Rush, Shaw & Emery, 1979). This questionnaire measures one's current level of depression using a Likert-type response format. The questionnaire consists of 21 items. The a reliability of the BDI scores for this sample was Rumination The final scale included in the packet was the Scott-Mclntosh Rumination Inventory. In completing this questionnaire, respondents are asked to indicate how well each item describes them using a 7-point Likert-type scale anchored by 'Does not describe me well' to 'Does describe me well'. The SMRI is purported to have three subscales: emotionality, motivation, and distraction. The items constituting this inventory are located in Table 1, along with their factor loadings. The means, standard deviations, intercorrelations, and a reliability scores for the overall scale and each of the subscales are presented in Table Procedure Each participant was seated in front of a packet of questionnaires. As soon as all the participants were present, the experimenter introduced the study as 'a study of thought processes' and asked the participants to follow along as the instructions on the front page of the questionnaire packet were read aloud. The instructions emphasized the importance of reading each of the questionnaires carefully before completing them. Participants completed the questionnaires in the following order: (1) Penn State Worry Questionnaire, (2) Fear of Sadness, (3) Cognitive Interference, (4) Worry Domains Questionnaire, (5) Neuroticism, (6) Linking, (7) Beck Depression Inventory, (8) Trait

8 1052 V.B. Scott, W.D. Mdntosh / Personality and Individual Differences 26 (1999) Anxiety, (9) Scott-Mclntosh Rumination Inventory. Once all questionnaires were complete, the participants were debriefed and dismissed Goodness of fit indices Confirmatory factor analysis produces a test of the fit between the data and a hypothesized model of latent variables (Hatcher, 1994). The Proc Calis procedure is used to conduct confirmatory factor analysis in SAS. The procedure produces several indices to assess how well a particular model fits a set of data. The model fit indices are generally referred to as goodness of fit indices (GFIs) (Hatcher, 1994). The GFIs provided by Proc Calis in the SAS system are the % 2 test, the CFI (aka Bentler' s Comparative Fit Index) and the NNFI (aka Bentler and Bonett's Non-Normed Index). In the ideal situation, one would like to see a non-significant % 2 test, and CFI and NNFI values of 1.00, thus indicating a perfectly fit model Results The SMRI was submitted to a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), using maximum-likelihood solution to test the hypothesized factor structure found in Study 1. The resulting factor loadings are presented in parentheses in Table 1 (under the factor loadings for the exploratory factor analysis). All of the factor loadings were found to be significant and most were close to those found by the exploratory factor analysis in Study 1. According to the criteria used to assess 'the goodness of fit' for the model, the data reasonably fit the model, though not perfectly. Under ideal circumstances, one would like to see a yj test that is non-significant. However, it is common practice in CFA to use a x 2 /df ratio as an estimate of the goodness of the fit for the model even if the x 2 test for the model is significant (Hatcher, 1994). In this case, one would like to see a % 2 /df ratio not more than The ~ \dfratio for the current model was In addition, the nonnormed and comparative fit indices were both greater than the recommended level of Bentler's comparative fit index was 0.94 and the Bentler and Bonett's Non-normed Index was The next step in evaluating the fit of the model is to review the residual and normalized residual matrices. Only one standardized residual was greater than two (2.53). Therefore, the model shows a good fit with the data and the loadings in Study 2 match relatively well the loadings from the exploratory factor analysis in Study 1. Therefore, the SMRI seems to be composed of the three hypothesized components: emotionality, motivation, and distraction Construct validation The intercorrelations among the Scott-Mclntosh Rumination Inventory and the other scales selected for comparison are represented in Table 3, along with their means and standard deviations. The pattern indicates that the Rumination Inventory is related to (but not identical to) worry. Moreover, the subscales of the rumination inventory are related to the other variables included in the study in a coherent manner. The emotionality subscale was related to neuroticism, trait anxiety, and depression, rs(138) = 0.26, 0.32 and 0.28, respectively, all/>s < The motivation component was unrelated to these variables, but was negatively related to worry about relationships, lack of confidence, and to worry about an aimless future (subscales of the Worry Domain

9 to is; Table 3 Intercorrelations among various questionnaire measures used in study 2 SMRI EMOT MOT DIST PSW 0.36 c 0.40 c " FOS 0.24 b 0.26 b " CI 0.44 c 0.30 c c WDOM c c WD1 0.20" 0.21" -0.21" 0.29' WD " 0.26 h WD3 O.35 c 0.30 C -0.19" 0.43 c WD c 0.18" c WD c 0.23 b c WD c 0.17" " NEU 0.34 c 0.26" c LINK 0.26 b 0.28 c " BDI O.38 c 0.28 c c TA c c 1 Note: n = 140; "p < 0.05; "p < 0.01; c p < PSW = Penn State Worry Scale; FOS = Fear of Sadness; Cl = Cognitive Interference; WDOM = Worry Domain Questionnaire; WD1 = Relationships Worry; WD2 = Lack of Confidence; WD3 = Aimless Future; WD4 = Work Incompetence; WD5 = Financial Worries, WD6 = Sociopolitical Worry; NEU = Neuroticism; LINK = Linking Scale, BDI = Beck Depression Inventory; TA = Trait Anxiety. s s

10 1054 V.B. Scotl, W.D. Mclntosh / Personality and Individual Differences 26 (1999) Questionnaire), rs(138) = -0.21, and -0.19, respectively, all ps < Lastly, the distraction subscale was related to cognitive interference (r = 0.50), worry about work incompetence (r = 0.37), worry about an aimless future (r = 0.43), neuroticism (r = 0.32), trait anxiety (r = 0.31), and depression, (r = 0.40), all Ps < The overall SMRI score (as well as its subscales) showed no relationship to the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Inventory (Reynolds, 1982), all Ps > Predictive validity (study 3) 5.7. Rumination and examination performance Rumination is purported to consume cognitive resources. The distraction component of the SMRI is designed to be sensitive to this aspect of rumination, as it attempts to measure the degree to which people are distracted by their ruminative thoughts. In order to conduct a preliminary test of the predictive validity of the SMRI, a convenience sample of 11 undergraduate psychology majors taking a research methods course was used. These 11 students (of 50) volunteered to complete the SMRI after completing their final exam for the course. It was hypothesized that the students' final exam scores could be predicted from their scores on the distraction subscale of the SMRI. The correlation between the distraction subscale and the final exam score for the sample was r = 0.63, p < The relationship holds when using a Spearman correlation as well, rs = 0.60, p Despite the fact that the sample is not a random sample, there is evidence that the sample is no different than the other students in the course. The sample's final exam grade average (M , SD = 23.82) did not differ from the class's final exam grade average (M = , SD = 23.38), t < \, ns. (A total of 150 points were possible on the final exam.) In addition, the sample of research methods students who completed the SMRI following their exam did not differ from the sample of 140 introductory psychology students from Study 2 on their distraction subscale scores (Ms = 14.64, 13.91, SDs = 3.32, 3.82, respectively) t < 1, ns. The correlation between the distraction subscale of the SMRI and examination scores was replicated on a larger sample of 26 undergraduate research methods/statistics students. In this study, 26 (of 46) participants volunteered to complete the SMRI the day before their midterm examination. The scores on the overall SMRI, the SMRI-E scale, and the SMRI-D scale correlated with students' final exam scores, rs = 0.54, 0.43, and 0.58, ps < 0.005, 0.05 and 0.005, respectively. The observed correlations between the distraction subscale and exam scores lend support to the hypothesis that rumination consumes cognitive resources Rumination and problem solving As another demonstration of the predictive validity of rumination, an attempt was made to predict performance on a geometric puzzle task based on scores on the distraction sub-scale of the SMRI. Because rumination should consume cognitive resources and the SMRI-D scale measures the extent to which participants are distracted by their ruminative thoughts, it should be possible to predict performance on a task that requires cognitive resources. Seventeen participants were first asked to complete the SMRI, the Thought Occurrence Questionnaire (Sarason et al., 1986),

11 V.B. Scott, W.D. Mclntosh / Personality and Individual Differences 26 (1999) and the Linking Questionnaire (Mclntosh & Martin, 1992). Then participants were shown a geometric box puzzle consisting of two large triangles, one medium sized triangle, two small triangles, a square, and parallelogram. When placed in the box in the proper positions, the pieces formed a square. Participants were shown the solution to the puzzle and were asked to study the solution for as long as they liked. Following the study period, the participants were asked to solve the puzzle as quickly as possible and were allowed to have as many trials as they needed until they were able to solve the puzzle in less than 35 s without the use of the solution. Participants were then shown one of two movie clips, lasting about 5 min. Following the movie clip, the participants were presented with the puzzle once again and were asked to solve it as quickly as possible. Scores on the SMRI-D were significantly correlated with the number of attempts taken by the participants to reach criterion (r = 0.56,/? < 0.05). In addition, a regression of solution times following the movie clip on the linear combination of measures of decrements in cognitive performance (i.e. cognitive interference, distraction resulting from rumination, and their interaction) was found to be significant F(3,13) = 11.65, p < , and accounted for 73% of the variance in solution time Discussion The above two sections have pointed to evidence of the predictive validity of the SMRI. In two quite different areas, evidence has been found that the SMRI can account for some of the variability in situations related to the need for cognitive processing resources. Work is underway to further explore the relationship between rumination and the consumption of cognitive resources. 6. General discussion The current work has shown the Scott-Mclntosh Rumination Inventory to be a reliable and valid measure of rumination. In addition, some preliminary evidence of the scale's predictive validity has been presented. The scale shows particular promise in accounting for variance in behavioral situations that require a person to focus attention on some task (namely, testing situations, and problem solving situations). The SMRI may be especially helpful in studying such areas as mood change, depression, anxiety, subjective-well being, stress, and health outcomes. Rumination has been found to be related to unhappiness (Mclntosh & Martin, 1992). People who engage in the belief that happiness is dependent upon attaining certain goals (i.e. they link their happiness to attaining certain goals) are more likely to ruminate about those goals. This rumination, in turn, mediates the relationship between linking and unhappiness. Nolen-Hoeksema and her colleagues have done some work to address the relationship between rumination and depression (Lyubomirsky & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1995). Nolen-Hoeksema and her colleagues have found that ruminative coping is associated with greater depression. Therefore, a measure of the general tendency to ruminate may be useful to clinicians in determining the best type of therapy or intervention for those seeking help for dysphoria or depression. Rumination is a broad class of thoughts, one that is difficult to measure with a single inventory. The SMRI is an attempt to measure a specific type of rumination negative rumination about

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