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Running Head: RUMINATION AND EMOTIONAL EXTRAPOLATION
For ruminators, the emotional future is bound to the emotional past: Heightened ruminative
disposition is characterised by increased emotional extrapolation
Edward Watkinsa,b, Ben Graftonb,
Stacey Megan Weinsteinb, Colin MacLeodb,c
Study of Maladaptive to Adaptive Repetitive Thought (SMART) Lab, School of Psychology,
University of Exetera
Centre for the Advancement of Research on Emotion, School of Psychology, University of Western
Australiab
School of Psychology, Babes-Bolyai University c
Contact details for corresponding author: Edward Watkins, Sir Henry Wellcome Building for Mood
Disorders Research, University of Exeter, UK, EX4 4QG
e-mail: e.r.watkins@exeter.ac.uk
Keywords: rumination, text comprehension, implicational, dysphoria, extrapolation, abstract
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RUMINATION AND EMOTIONAL EXTRAPOLATION
Abstract
Processing mode theory (Watkins, 2008) proposes that rumination is characterized by abstract
processing that involves increased thinking about the implications of emotional events, which
derives the prediction that heightened ruminative disposition will be associated with elevated
emotional extrapolation from current events when formulating future expectancies. To test this, we
used a novel Emotional Extrapolation Assessment Task (EEAT) that measured individual
differences in the degree to which the emotional tone of initial events influence relative expectancy
for subsequent events that are emotionally consistent or inconsistent with this initial event. In
Experiment 1, ruminative disposition was associated with increased self-reported expectancy for
negative subsequent events relative to positive subsequent events. As predicted, in Experiment 2,
heightened ruminative disposition was associated with increased emotional extrapolation, assessed
using a comprehension latency performance-based measure.
Keywords: rumination, text comprehension, implicational, dysphoria, extrapolation, abstract
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RUMINATION AND EMOTIONAL EXTRAPOLATION
Rumination, defined as “passively and repetitively focusing on one’s symptoms of distress
and the circumstances surrounding these symptoms” (Nolen-Hoeksema, McBride, & Larson, 1997,
p.855), has been implicated as a major process in the onset and maintenance of depression (NolenHoeksema, Wisco & Lyubomirsky, 2008; Watkins, 2008). People differ in the degree to which they
tend to experience rumination, with this variation in ruminative disposition most commonly
assessed using the Ruminative Response Scale (RRS; Nolen-Hoeksema & Morrow, 1991).
Prospective longitudinal studies have found that elevated dispositional rumination predicts the
likelihood, severity, and duration of major depression (e.g., Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000; Spasojevic &
Alloy, 2001; see reviews in Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 2008, Watkins, 2008). Moreover, it appear that
rumination plays a causal role in the development of depression-relevant symptoms, as the
experimental induction of rumination exacerbates negative mood and thought content (NolenHoeksema et al., 2008; Watkins, 2008).
Watkins and colleagues recently proposed processing mode theory to explain the cognitive
basis of heightened ruminative disposition (Watkins, 2008; Watkins & Moulds, 2005; Watkins,
Moberly, & Moulds, 2008). According to this account, the heightened tendency to engage in
maladaptive rumination is characterised by an “abstract” mode of processing, which focuses on
causes, meanings, implications, significance, and consequences of feelings and events, consistent
with the phenomenology of depressive rumination, as opposed to a “concrete” mode of processing
focused on direct, detailed, concrete experience and the mechanics of how such events occur. In
turn, these distinct modes of processing are proposed to have distinct functional consequences, with
the abstract processing mode implicated in causing the negative consequences of rumination, such
as increased emotional reactivity and poor problem-solving, relative to the concrete processing
mode, when applied to negative situations, in experimental studies (Watkins & Mould, 2005;
Watkins et al., 2008). Because the abstract style of processing engenders mental representations that
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summarize the gist, meanings, and implications of events without contextual detail, and, thereby,
involves heightened implicational processing (Trope & Liberman, 2003; Vallacher & Wegner,
1987; Watkins, 2004; Watkins & Teasdale, 2001), it leads people to anticipate the likely impact of
present events and experiences on future events and experiences, whereas the concrete style of
processing leads people to focus only on current events and experiences within their particular
context, without considering their implications for the future. Within processing mode theory, the
implicational thinking associated with the abstract processing mode is considered to have negative
repercussions when applied to difficulties and negative events, and there is evidence to support this.
For example, inducing such abstract implicational thinking increases global negative selfevaluations (Rimes & Watkins, 2005), increases recall of overgeneral autobiographical memories
that predict poor outcome in depression (Watkins & Teasdale, 2001, 2004), and increases the
generalization gradient for responses to conditioned negative stimuli (Van Lier, Vervliet,
Vanbrabrant, Lenaert, & Raes, in press). Thus, the processing mode theory (Watkins, 2008)
hypothesises that dysregulation of processing mode results in overly abstract implicational
processing in those individuals prone to rumination, without necessarily hypothesizing this deficit
to be specific to negative information, but, rather, proposing that it is particularly unconstructive
when it occurs in the context of negative information.
Because it involves heightened implicational thinking, the abstract processing mode will
lead people to more strongly infer that present events are likely to have consequences for future
events, compared to the concrete processing mode. Thus, processing mode theory predicts that
heightened ruminative disposition will be characterised by an increased tendency to extrapolate
from the gist of current events, to anticipate the likely gist of future events. An important aspect of
gist is the emotional tone of events, for example, whether the event had a positive or negative
outcome, and emotional extrapolation occurs when individuals base their expectancies concerning
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the emotional tone of future events upon the emotional tone of prior events. Such emotional
extrapolation is a manifestation of implicational thinking, in that the emotional tone of the initial
emotional event is taken to carry implications for the likely emotional tone of future events,
regardless of whether the emotional tone is positive or negative. Processing mode theory therefore
predicts that heightened ruminative disposition, because it involves an abstract mode of processing
that favors implicational thinking, will be characterized by increased emotional extrapolation
(without predicting that this increase will be specific to negative emotional extrapolation).
To date, our capacity to empirically evaluate processing mode theory, by assessing the
degree to which people who vary in ruminative disposition engage in a processing mode that favors
implicational thinking, has been constrained by reliance on self-report measures of processing style.
There is compelling evidence that self-report measures of cognitive processes commonly lack
validity (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). However, it would be possible to assess engagement in
implicational thinking indirectly, by examining the degree to which people display emotional
extrapolation when judging the likelihood of events. More specifically, individual differences in the
degree to which people show evidence that they expect the emotional tone of a subsequent event to
be consistent with, rather than inconsistent with, that of a prior event (i.e. the degree to which they
demonstrate emotional extrapolation), will reveal individual differences in implicational thinking.
Thus, a central hypothesis of processing mode theory that heightened rumination is characterized by
adoption of an abstract processing mode that favors implicational thinking, can be evaluated by
testing the veracity of the resulting prediction that people with higher scores on the Ruminative
Response Scale (RRS) will be associated with greater evidence of emotional extrapolation on such
an assessment task.
In the present program of research, we developed a new assessment approach to measure the
degree to which participants demonstrate emotional extrapolation and reveal individual differences
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in implicational thinking - the Emotional Extrapolation Assessment Task (EEAT). The basic format
of this task involves presenting participants with textual scenarios, and having participants rate their
expectancies for emotional events described towards the end of each scenario. While this approach
has previously been used to assess emotional expectancies (e.g., Klar, Gabai, & Baron, 1997), the
novel feature of the present EEAT approach is that each scenario now also described an earlier
emotional event, occurring within a situation, which preceded the final emotional event that
participants rated in terms of expectancy. Thus, by enabling assessment of the degree to which
expectancy for differentially emotional subsequent events is influenced by the emotional tone of
previous events in a prior situation (counterbalanced across positive and negative outcomes), the
EEAT permits assessment of emotional extrapolation.
We used this task in two experiments to test the prediction, generated by processing mode
theory, that elevated ruminative disposition will be characterised by heightened emotional
extrapolation. Experiment 1 examined whether heightened ruminative disposition is characterized
by increased emotional extrapolation using a variant of the EEAT in which participants explicitly
rated their expectancies for the final emotional events in each scenario. In contrast, Experiment 2
examined whether heightened ruminative disposition is characterized by increased emotional
extrapolation using an EEAT variant in which participants’ relative expectancies for the final
emotional events in each scenario were inferred from their comprehension latencies for these event
descriptions.
Experiment 1
Method
Participants. Participants were 64 (18 male) undergraduate psychology students from the
University of Western Australia and the University of Exeter. The pool was sampled in a manner
that ensured a wide range of ruminative disposition scores and depression scores, with Ruminative
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Response Scale (RRS) scores of participants ranging from 23 to 77 (M = 41.45, SD = 12.65) and
Beck Depression Inventory-II scores ranging from 0 to 46 (M = 13.14, SD =10.14). Participants
ranged in age from 17 to 55 years (M = 20.30, SD = 6.57).
Materials and Tasks.
Questionnaire Measures.
Ruminative Response Scale. Ruminative disposition was assessed using the Ruminative
Response Scale (RRS; Nolen-Hoeksema & Morrow, 1991), which requires participants to rate their
tendency to experience each of 22 particular ruminative responses when in a negative mood. The
responses are focused on self, symptoms, and possible consequences and causes of their mood (e.g.,
“Think about how you don’t seem to feel anything anymore”). Previous studies have reported
acceptable convergent and predictive validity for the RRS (e.g., Butler & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1994;
Nolen-Hoeksema & Morrow, 1991).
Beck Depression Inventory – II. Depression was assessed using the Beck Depression
Inventory-II (BDI-II; Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996), which requires participants to respond to 21
statements describing various depressive symptoms, on a scale ranging from 0 – 3. The BDI-II has
been shown to have both good reliability (Wiebe & Penley, 2005) and validity (Storch, Roberti, &
Roth, 2004).
Experimental Stimulus materials. The experimental stimulus set comprised 80 passages,
each describing a situation that participants were required to imagine themselves in. Each passage
consisted of a title and 7 sentences. The first three sentences described the initial setting of the
scenario (e.g. “You have invited some friends over for dinner. You have prepared beef Wellington.
Over dessert, the conversation turns to politics”). The 4th sentence described an Initial Emotional
Event, and by altering a single word this sentence could be delivered in either the Initial Event
Positive condition (e.g. “Your friend Andy agrees with your opinion) or in the Initial Event
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Negative condition (e.g. “Your friend Andy disagrees with your opinion”). The 5th sentence
transitioned to a later situation by introducing an explicit temporal shift and describing this
subsequent setting (e.g., “Two weeks later you are sitting at the table drinking a cup of coffee”).
The 6th sentence then described a specific situation within this subsequent circumstance (e.g. “You
remember to ask your friend Andy if you can borrow his drill to complete some DIY”), which led to
a Subsequent Emotional Event described in the 7th sentence. By altering a single word, this sentence
could be delivered in either the Subsequent Event Positive condition (e.g. “When you ask to borrow
the drill, Andy agrees”), or in the Subsequent Event Negative condition (e.g. “When you ask to
borrow the drill, Andy disagrees”). Our interest was in participants’ relative expectancies for the
Subsequent Emotional Event in each of these two emotional conditions, as a function of both Initial
Event Valence and ruminative disposition.
Experimental Hardware. A Logitech Express PC with an LG Flatron E2210 computer
screen was used to deliver the task. The space-bar key on a Logitech keyboard was used to deliver
the sentences at a self-paced rate.
Emotional Extrapolation Assessment Task (EEAT). The Emotional Extrapolation
Assessment Task presented each of these 80 passages in a random order. For every passage,
participants received each sentence individually, in white text, upon pressing the space bar. They
were required to silently read each sentence for meaning as it appeared on the screen, and to push
the space-bar when they had understood it, to receive the next statement. After the first six
sentences had been read, when the space bar was pressed the 7th sentence describing the Subsequent
Emotional Event appeared in yellow text, together with an on-screen expectancy rating Likert scale.
Participants were required to rate the degree to which they would expect this event to occur, in the
situation described by the scenario, using this -30 (highly unlikely) to +30 (highly likely) scale.
Higher scores indicated increased self-reported expectancies for this described emotional event.
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Once this rating had been made, then the screen was cleared, and the next passage title appeared
1000 ms later, commencing the next trial.
For each participant, 40 of the 80 passages appeared in the Initial Event Positive condition,
and 40 appeared in the Initial Event Negative condition. In each case, half of these 40 trials were
presented in the Subsequent Event Positive condition and half were presented in the Subsequent
Event Negative condition. Therefore 20 of the 80 experimental passages were delivered in each of
the four possible conditions resulting from the nested combination of these two experimental
factors. Across every four participants, each passage appeared once in each of these unique
conditions.
The dependent variable was the self-reported expectancy for the Subsequent Emotional
Event, as described in sentence 7. To the extent that participants exhibit emotional extrapolation,
the relative expectancy for negative subsequent events compared to positive subsequent events will
be inflated in the Initial Event Negative condition compared to the Initial Event Positive condition.
This interaction effect would be exaggerated in participants with higher RRS scores, if heightened
ruminative disposition is characterized by increased emotional extrapolation, as hypothesized.
Procedure. Participants were tested individually. Each participant was seated approximately
60 cm from the computer screen, and given instructions for the EEAT. These instructions
emphasised that the participant should imagine themselves in the scenarios described in each
passage, and to read each sentence at their own pace, before making the expectancy judgement
concerning the event described in the final sentence of each passage. Participants completed the
EEAT, followed by the BDI-II and RRS, before being thanked and debriefed.
Results
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Mean expectancy ratings for the emotional events described in the final sentences of
passages present in each experimental condition are shown in Table 1. These expectancy rating
scores were subjected to a repeated measures ANCOVA that considered two within-subject factors,
Initial Event Valence (Positive Initial Event vs. Negative Initial Event), and Subsequent Event
Valence (Positive Subsequent Event vs. Negative Subsequent Event), with RRS rumination scores
entered as a continuous variable. This analysis revealed a significant interaction of Subsequent
Event Valence by RRS scores, F(1, 62) = 10.95, p = 0.002, η2 = 0.15, reflecting an increase in the
relative expectancy for negative subsequent events, compared to positive subsequent events, as RRS
scores increased, r (62) = .39, p = .002).
There was also a significant two way interaction of Initial Event Valence and Subsequent
Event Valence, F(1, 62) = 4.10, p = .047, η2 = 0.06, the nature of which confirmed that
participants engaged in emotional extrapolation when performing this task. Specifically,
participants gave higher expectancy ratings for negative subsequent events when the initial event
valence was negative rather than positive (M = 3.96, SD =6.10 vs M= 1.76, SD =7.23), and gave
higher expectancy ratings for positive subsequent events when the initial event valence was positive
rather than negative (M = 9.45, SD = 5.91 vs M =-1.47, SD = 6.17). Of crucial importance to the
hypothesis under test, however, there was no evidence that RRS score moderated such emotional
extrapolation, as the three way interaction involving Initial Event Valence, Subsequent Event
Valence, and RRS score did not approach significance F(1, 62) = 0.30, p = .58, η2 = .005.
Heightened ruminative disposition is often accompanied by heightened depression and
indeed, in our present sample, RRS scores were positively correlated with BDI-II scores, r (62)
= .67, p < .001. Hence the observed expectancy bias, reflecting a relative increased expectancy for
negative compared to positive subsequent events in participants with higher RRS scores, may have
been a specific function of depression, rather than ruminative disposition. To determine if this was
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the case, we entered RRS scores and BDI-II scores simultaneously into a multiple regression in
which the DV was negative expectancy bias index score (computed by subtracting the expectancy
rating for positive subsequent events from the expectancy ratings for negative subsequent events).
This analysis showed that the regression model was significant, F (2, 61) = 6.37, p = .003, adjusted
R2 = 0.15, although neither the RRS rumination score, t (62) = 1.61, p =.11, β = .252, nor the BDI-II
depression scores predicted independent variance in the expectancy bias scores, t (62) = 1.30, p
=.20, β = .203.
Discussion
These results indicate that heightened ruminative disposition is characterized by increased
negative expectancy bias, reflecting an inflated self-reported expectancy for negative events relative
to positive events. The combination of ruminative disposition and depressive symptoms together
explained significant variance in the negative expectancy bias, without either being an independent
predictor, suggesting that the shared variance across both is related to negative expectancy. There
was also evidence that participants engaged in emotional extrapolation, reporting a heightened
expectancy for subsequent events consistent with the emotional valence of initial events, relative to
subsequent events inconsistent with the emotional valence of subsequent events. However, there
was no support for the emotional extrapolation hypotheses derived from processing mode theory
(Watkins, 2008), as there not a significant relationship between ruminative disposition and the
degree to which participants exhibited such emotional extrapolation of inferences from the outcome
of the initial event to the outcome of the subsequent event.
While the findings from this study do not support the extrapolation hypothesis, we should
perhaps be cautious about rejecting this hypothesis on the basis of findings that concern only selfreport measures of expectancy. Individuals often have a limited ability to accurately report on their
cognitive processes, especially if these processes are subtle or implicit, and commonly show an
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inability to make fine-grain distinctions concerning cognitive processes (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977).
Moreover, self-report studies are often highly susceptible to response bias (e.g., MacLeod &
Mathews, 1991; Mathews & MacLeod, 1994; Mogg, Bradbury, & Bradley, 2006), such as an
emotionally-linked bias that increases the tendency to emit or endorse negative responses,
especially when in a negative mood. Such a response bias effect is likely to be highly pertinent for
the observation of the negative expectancy bias. For example, individuals with an elevated
ruminative disposition may exhibit a negative response bias, whereby they explicitly report a
preference for negative expectancies even under conditions where true expectancy for such negative
expectancies may be attenuated. Self-report studies also are susceptible to demand effects whereby
participants may be vulnerable to responding in a way that they think is expected of them (e.g.,
MacLeod & Cohen, 1993; MacLeod & Mathews, 1991a), and again this could lead participants
with higher ruminative disposition scores to over-report negative expectancies. Such effects
plausibly could result in the underestimation of emotional extrapolation in participants with
heightened ruminative disposition, when self-report measures of expectancy are employed.
To overcome these methodological limitations, researchers have developed non self-report
performance-based approaches to examine putative cognitive biases, for example, the use of the
attentional probe task to investigate attentional biases (Mathews & MacLeod, 1994). Replication of
the present study, using a performance-based measure capable of indexing relative expectancy for
the positive and negative subsequent events in these experimental scenarios without reliance on
self-report, may provide a more compelling test of the extrapolation hypothesis. This was the aim of
Experiment 2.
Experiment 2
In Experiment 2, we adapted the EEAT into a performance-based measure of expectancy, in
order to test the hypothesis that individuals with a heightened ruminative disposition display
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elevated extrapolation for emotional events. Specifically, we used relative comprehension latencies
for the sentences communicating the alternative types of subsequent emotional events, to index
relative expectancies for the differing categories of events. This text comprehension approach has a
long tradition within cognitive-experimental psychology, where it has been clearly shown that
comprehension latencies are longer for textual information that is unexpected (see Anderson,
Garrod, & Sanford, 1983; Garrod & Sanford, 1981 for evidence).
Using this approach for the passages employed in Experiment 1, negative expectancy bias
can be inferred from the degree to which comprehension latencies are relatively speeded for the
sentences communicating the subsequent events when these events are negative rather than positive
in emotional tone. Of most relevance to the hypothesis under scrutiny, rumination-linked
differences in emotional extrapolation will be revealed by the existence of an association between
RRS scores and the degree to which the comprehension latencies for negative subsequent events
compared to positive subsequent events are speeded in the Initial Event Negative condition
compared to the Initial Event Positive condition. To our knowledge, this text comprehension EEAT
task provides the first performance-based assessment of emotional extrapolation in participants who
vary in ruminative disposition.
Method
Design. To test the experimental hypotheses under investigation, individuals ranging in
ruminative tendency (as inferred by current RRS) were given the Text Comprehension EEAT. The
experimental design employed two within-subject factors. The dependent variable was
comprehension latency for sentence 7 in our test passages, which communicated the Subsequent
Emotional Event. Experimental factors were Initial Event Valence condition (Positive Initial Event
vs. Negative Initial Event), and Subsequent Event Valence condition (Positive Subsequent Event vs.
Negative Subsequent Event). Ruminative disposition was examined as a continuous covariate.
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Participants. Participants were 67 (31 male) undergraduate psychology students from the
University of Western Australia. The pool was sampled in a manner that ensured a wide range of
ruminative tendency scores and depression scores, with Ruminative Response Scale (RRS) scores
of participants at testing ranging from 25 to 78 (M = 44.22, SD = 14.30) and BDI-II scores of
participants at testing ranging from 0 to 46 (M = 11.06, SD = 10.79). Participants ranged in age
from 17 to 40 years (M = 19.09, SD = 3.56).
Materials and Tasks.
The materials replicated Experiment 1, with the following amendments for the experimental
stimulus materials and EEAT:
(i) An 8th neutral sentence added to the end of each passage, in order that we could assess
comprehension latency for sentence 7, by measuring how long participants took to process this
sentence before they pressed the space bar to receive the subsequent sentence.
(ii) A comprehension question was constructed for each passage, which did not pertain to
the subsequent emotional event described in sentence 7 but did pertain to one of the other sentences,
and to which the answer was “Yes” or “No” (e.g. in the example passage given in the previous
Method section this was “Did you talk about sport at dinner?”). Participants were required to
answer this question after reading each passage, to ensure that they read for meaning, as instructed.
(iii) A set of 80 filler passages was constructed, each comprising 8 sentences and a question,
but without the consistent internal structure that characterized the experimental stimulus set. We
added these filler passages to obscure the structural consistency within the experimental passages,
by presenting them mixed together with the filler passages in the test session.
(iv) For the text comprehension variant of EEAT, the Subsequent Emotional Event sentence
did not now appear in yellow text, accompanied by an expectancy rating scale. Rather it appeared in
white text, just like the preceding sentences, and participants were given no special instruction
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concerning this particular sentence. Rather, they read it, and pressed the space bar to receive the
next sentence when they had understood it. The dependent variable was comprehension latency for
this Subsequent Emotional Event sentence, operationalized as the interval between the space-bar
press that exposed this sentence and the subsequent space-bar press which exposed the next
sentence.
Procedure. Participants were tested individually. Each participant was seated approximately
60 cm from the computer screen, and given instructions for the text comprehension task. These
instructions emphasised that the participant should imagine themselves in the scenarios described in
each passage, and to ensure accurate responses to the final comprehension questions, whilst not
taking any more time than necessary to read each sentence and to answer the question. A short
practice that employed only neutral stimuli was given. Then the participant completed the Text
Comprehension EEAT, before then completing the BDI-II and RRS, before being thanked and
debriefed.
Results
Mean comprehension latencies for the Subsequent Emotional Event sentences, under each
passage condition, are shown in Table 2. To test the extrapolation hypothesis, these comprehension
latencies were subjected to a repeated measures ANCOVA that considered two within-subject
factors, Initial Event Valence (Positive Initial Event vs. Negative Initial Event), and Subsequent
Event Valence (Positive Subsequent Event vs. Negative Subsequent Event). The RRS rumination
scores were entered as a continuous variable. This analysis revealed a significant two way
interaction of Initial Event Valence x Subsequent Event Valence, F (1, 65) = 5.09, p = .03, η2 = .07,
that was further modified by RRS score within a higher order interaction involving all three factors,
F(1, 65) = 5.63, p = .02, η2 = 0.08. No other effects were significant (all p’s > .26, all η2 <.02).
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The pattern of this three way interaction was examined, to determine whether its nature was
consistent with that predicted by the extrapolation hypothesis. Specifically, we first computed an
emotional extrapolation index, expressing the degree to which participants were speeded on this
subsequent emotional event sentence, when its valence was consistent with, compared to
inconsistent with, the valence of the initial emotional event sentence. A high score on this index,
reflecting a heightened tendency to display speeding to comprehend later events consistent in
emotional tone with earlier events, indicates greater emotional extrapolation. We then examined the
association between this emotional extrapolation index and RRS score, revealing a significant
positive correlation, r (65) = .28, p = .02. Hence the three way interaction reflects the fact that
higher RRS scores were characterized by a heightened tendency to engage in emotional
extrapolation. It is interesting to note that the strength of this observed effect, reflecting increased
emotional extrapolation as a function of ruminative disposition, did not differ as a function of the
emotional tone of the initial event. Higher RRS scores were positively associated with the degree to
which participants displayed speeding to comprehend later events consistent with rather than
inconsistent with the emotional tone of initial events, regardless of whether initial events were
emotionally negative, r (65) =.21, p = .09, or were emotional positive, r (65) = .26, p = .03, and
there was no significance difference in the magnitude of these two correlations, z = .30, p = .76.
Because RRS scores were highly correlated with BDI-II scores, r(65) = .86, p < .001, it is
not surprising that their relative effects on emotional extrapolation could not be separated: when
RRS scores and BDI-II scores were entered simultaneously into a multiple regression in which
emotional extrapolation index was the dependent variable, the overall regression model was
significant, F (2, 64) = 3.33, p =.04, adjusted R2 = 0.07, but neither ruminative disposition, t (64)
= .317, p =.75, β = .075 nor depression score, t (64) = 1.01, p = .31, β = .24, individually predicted
the emotional extrapolation index.
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Discussion
The relationship found between ruminative disposition and the performance-based index of
expectancy provided by the text comprehension EEAT is consistent with the predictions generated
by the emotional extrapolation hypothesis under test. These findings represent objective evidence
that heightened ruminative disposition is characterized by an elevated tendency to generate
expectations on the basis of emotional extrapolation. Specifically, people who have an elevated
tendency to exhibit rumination are disproportionately inclined to display inflated relative
expectancy for events that are consistent with the emotional tone of recent past events. To our
knowledge, this is the first study to have demonstrated this rumination-linked anomaly in
expectancy generation, and revealing this with a performance-based measure of expectancy, which
negates reliance on self-report, increases confidence in the veracity of the effect.
Interestingly, Experiment 2 did not replicate the finding from Experiment 1 suggesting that
ruminative disposition may be associated with an overall negative expectancy bias. Because the key
difference between Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 is the use of a self-report measure of
expectancy in the former study, and a performance-based measure in the latter study, this
discrepancy invites speculation that this effect may have resulted from a response bias in the
previous experiment. As we noted earlier, such a response bias could potentially compromise
detection of rumination-linked differences in emotional extrapolation, when self-report measures of
expectancy are employed. Consistent with this possibility, when the limitations of self-report were
eliminated by the use of the comprehension measure in the present study, then not only does the
relationship between ruminative disposition and negative expectancy bias disappear, but a
relationship between ruminative disposition and emotional extrapolation appears. This pattern of
findings not only lends weight to the possibility elevated ruminative disposition is associated with a
negative response bias when self-report measures of expectancy are employed, but also
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demonstrates that performance-based measures can reveal processes underpinning the generation of
expectancies that are not accurately indexed by self-report (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977).
General Discussion
The purpose of the present experiments was to determine whether heightened ruminative
disposition is characterized by an elevated tendency to make emotional extrapolations, evidenced
by the degree to which the emotional tone of an initial event influences relative expectancies for
negative and positive subsequent events. When we had participants self-report their expectancies
for subsequent events, in Experiment 1, there was no evidence to support this prediction. Rather
participants with higher ruminative disposition self-reported only a generally heightened expectancy
for negative relative to positive events. However, when expectancies for subsequent events instead
were indirectly assessed, using the performance measure provided by comprehension latencies, then
the pattern of findings was quite different. Now there was no evidence that heightened ruminative
disposition was associated with a general negative expectancy bias. Rather it was associated with
the predicted increase in emotional extrapolation.
This pattern of findings, obtained using our performance-based measure of emotional
extrapolation, is consistent with the prediction generated by processing mode theory (Watkins,
2008). According to this theory, heightened ruminative disposition is characterized by increased
engagement in an abstract mode of processing that favors implicational thinking. Such implicational
thinking is evidenced in the present studies by increased emotional extrapolation. Therefore the
observation in Experiment 2 that heightened ruminative disposition was characterized by increased
emotional extrapolation supports the validity of processing mode theory.
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What conclusions should be drawn from the observed discrepancy between the findings
obtained in Experiment 1 (using a self-report expectancy measure) and in Experiment 2 (using a
performance-based expectancy measure)? It is our own view that when self-report measures and
performance-based measures of a cognitive process disagree, then it is prudent to have greater faith
in the latter. Hence, we believe that this present demonstration that self-report and performancebased measures can invite discrepant conclusions underscores the importance of investigating
cognitive processes through the use of objective behavioural indices, to circumvent the wellestablished limitations of reliance on self-report measures, which include but are not restricted to
the possibility of contamination by response biases and demand effects (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977).
We note, however, that an alternative explanation is a simple failure to replicate prior findings.
These findings obtained in Experiment 2 have a number of theoretical and clinical
implications. As already noted, they provide direct support for processing mode theory, which
proposes that the ruminative disposition depends on the degree to which individuals adopt the
abstract rather than the concrete processing mode when processing self-relevant emotional events
(Watkins, 2008). We note that the increased emotional extrapolation associated with heighted
ruminative disposition will not always lead to inflated expectancies for negative events. Rather,
when currently experiencing positive events, this same disposition would lead to the increased
expectancy that future events also are likely to be positive. This tendency towards abstract
implicational processing when applied to positive events, such as receiving a compliment, can lead
to positive consequences such elevated positive affect (Marigold, Holmes, & Ross, 2007). Thus,
elevated ruminative disposition may not always be maladaptive. Instead, this disposition may
perhaps be more accurately conceptualized as a mechanism that inflates the emotional impact of
current events, by increasing the probability that people will anticipate that future events will likely
be of a similar emotional valence. This disposition may thus confer vulnerability to depression
20
RUMINATION AND EMOTIONAL EXTRAPOLATION
because when highly negative life events are experienced, the resulting disproportionate elevation
in expectancy that future events will also be highly negative produces the sense of hopelessness and
pessimism commonly experienced in depression.
Because heightened ruminative disposition is also accompanied by patterns of cognitive
bias, which increase the probability that current events will be construed in emotionally negative
terms, this may further amplify the risk that the accompanying increase in emotional extrapolation
will elicit such pessimism. Such cognitive biases include increased selective attention to negative
elements of the current environment, and an increased tendency to impose negative interpretations
on ambiguous aspects of this environment, both of which have been shown to be associated with
elevated ruminative disposition (Donaldson, Lam, & Mathews, 2007; Hertel, Mor, Ferrari, Hunt, &
Agrawal, 2014; Joormann, Dkane, & Gotlib, 2006; Mor, Hertel, Ngo, Shachar, & Redak, 2014). An
increased tendency to engage in emotional extrapolation, coupled with processing biases that
increase the perceived negativity of current events and situations, could be a potent combination of
risk factors in determining vulnerability to depression.
At a clinical level, these findings have several potential applied implications. First, they
suggest the possibility that the text comprehension EEAT may provide a clinically useful
assessment of vulnerability to depression, which might improve on the predictive capacity of
questionnaire measures of ruminative disposition. Examining the relative extent to which RRS
score and the index of emotional extrapolation provided by the EEAT predict the development of
depression in response to negative life events will test such clinical utility. Second, and relatedly,
the emotional extrapolation measure provide by the EEAT may be a useful marker of clinical
change, revealing the degree to which clinical interventions for depression have attenuated this
vulnerability factor, without the contamination influence of demand effects that compromise selfreport measures of therapeutic change.
21
RUMINATION AND EMOTIONAL EXTRAPOLATION
Third, the present findings lend weight to the idea that implicational thinking in general, and
perhaps emotional extrapolation in particular, may be an appropriate target for direct therapeutic
intervention. Watkins et al. (2008) recently developed an instruction-based training procedure
intended to attenuate engagement in abstract implicational thinking. However, the capacity of this
training to genuinely reduce reliance on this processing mode was evaluated using only self-report
measures of abstract vs concrete thinking, which are vulnerable to demand effects and reporting
bias. Research can employ the newly developed EEAT procedure to verify this instruction-based
training does genuinely reduce abstract implicational thinking, as objectively indexed by RT
measure of emotional extrapolation, thereby bypassing the limitations of self-report. Extensions of
such future work then can investigate whether the therapeutic benefits of this instructional training
procedure are mediated by the intended change in abstract implicational thinking. For example, the
processing mode theory predicts that the concreteness training form of cognitive bias modification,
derived from these training manipulations (Watkins et al., 2009, 2012), will reduce emotional
extrapolation on the EEAT, and that this reduction in implicational thinking will mediate the
observed benefits of concreteness training on depression and ruminative disposition.
There are of course some limitations associated with the current studies. First, we did not
recruit participants characterised by an excessively high ruminative disposition or patients with
depression, and so it remains to be seen whether such participants exhibit the same patterns of
emotional extrapolation as those in the present research, and whether these findings generalize to
clinical populations. It was not possible to discriminate independent effects of ruminative
disposition and depressive symptoms on negative expectancy bias and abstract extrapolation,
respectively. Because our novel text comprehension latency measure of inferred expectancies found
an emotional extrapolation effect, it would be valuable to see if this pattern can be found in patients
with depression.
22
RUMINATION AND EMOTIONAL EXTRAPOLATION
A second limitation is that we only assessed extrapolation from one situation to another
situation in terms of the emotionality of events. Thus, whilst our findings are consistent with
ruminative disposition being characterized by increased emotional extrapolation, it remains to be
seen whether this reflects only emotional extrapolation or a more general heightened tendency to
extrapolate from present events when forming future expectancies that implicates non-emotional
aspects of events also. For example, heightened rumination may also be associated with an
increased tendency to extrapolate that if present events are of any given nature (e.g., involve
particular settings, particular people, and/or particular activities) then future events are
disproportionately likely to have similar qualities. Once again, it will take further research to
determine whether the increased extrapolation associated with heightened ruminative disposition is
specific to emotional dimensions of events and experience.
A critical next step for this field is to establish the causal direction of the relationship
between rumination and abstract-implicational thinking. Whilst the current studies indicate there is
such a relationship, a key unresolved question is whether the tendency towards implicational
thinking that underpins the observed effects on emotional extrapolation is a cause or a consequence
of ruminative disposition. An important set of studies would therefore adapt the cognitive bias
modification approach such as used to study attentional and interpretative processes, to the
examination of extrapolation across events. To measure bias in the EEAT, negative and positive
outcomes appear with equal 50% likelihood for the subsequent event, no matter the outcome of the
primary event. Modifying the tendency to emotionally extrapolate involves introducing
contingencies such that, for example, the valence of the subsequent event is congruent with the
valence of the initial event on the majority of trials (e.g., 90% likelihood) to train towards emotional
extrapolation, or the valence of the subsequent event is incongruent with the valence of the initial
event on the majority of trials (e.g. 90% likelihood) to train away from emotional extrapolation. The
23
RUMINATION AND EMOTIONAL EXTRAPOLATION
desired response is rewarded by easier and more fluent performance on the reading task and via
overt feedback on comprehension questions (e.g. “Correct”). For example, studies manipulating
emotional extrapolation could then test whether this process causally influences ruminative
disposition, such as assessed in response to a failure experience. Conversely, the causal effect of
rumination on implicational thinking should be tested, for example, by comparing the effects of the
standard rumination versus distraction manipulations (e.g., Lyubomirsky & Nolen-Hoeksema,
1995) on tasks such as the EEAT.
A related critical question for the study of rumination, in part highlighted by this study, is
the need to better delineate what patterns of selective information-processing maintain rumination,
with particular reference to clarifying the roles and potential interactions of valence-specific
cognitive biases (such as attentional bias towards negative information; Donaldson et al., 2006;
Joormann et al., 2006 or bias towards negative interpretations of ambiguous information, Hertel et
al., 2014; Mor et al., 2014) versus non-valence-specific information processing (such as abstract
processing, Watkins, 2008). First, resolving the role and relationship between valenced and nonvalenced processing in rumination would test and refine existing theoretical models. For example,
in the current studies, both a negative expectancy bias and emotional extrapolation were associated
with ruminative disposition. The processing mode theory (Watkins, 2008) hypothesises that a
deficit in regulating processing mode results in overly abstract implicational processing in those
individuals prone to rumination, without hypothesizing this deficit to be specific to only negative
information, but, rather, proposing that it is particularly unconstructive in the context of negative
information. Likewise, the impaired disengagement theory (Koster, De Lissnyder, Derakshan, & De
Raedt, 2011) hypothesises that rumination is engendered by difficulties in disengaging processing
from negative self-related information, but to date it is unresolved to what extent difficulties in
disengagement might reflect a general deficit in cognitive control (e.g., inhibition of previously
24
RUMINATION AND EMOTIONAL EXTRAPOLATION
relevant information in working memory) and/or a selective processing bias towards negative
information. Second, to date, these distinct biases (e.g., processing mode, cognitive control,
attentional bias, interpretative bias) have been examined separately, so it has not been possible to
determine if they multiply contribute to rumination, interact, or are related processes. An important
line of enquiry is therefore the concurrent study of multiple cognitive biases with respect to
ruminative disposition, both cross-sectionally and through experimental manipulation.
25
RUMINATION AND EMOTIONAL EXTRAPOLATION
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Table 1
Mean Expectancy Ratings (-30 to +30) across Conditions (SD in Parentheses) for Experiment 1
Initial Event Valence
Subsequent Event Valence
Negative
Positive
Negative
3.96 (6.10)
1.76 (7.23)
Positive
-1.47 (6.17)
9.45 (5.91)
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RUMINATION AND EMOTIONAL EXTRAPOLATION
Table 2
Mean Comprehension Latency times for Subsequent Event Valence sentences in Milliseconds (SD in
parentheses) across Conditions in Experiment 2.
Initial Event Valence
Subsequent Event Valence
Negative
Positive
Negative
2054.99 (680.33)
1988.80 (639.63)
Positive
2012.33 (662.66)
1945.15 (691.56)