Rumination and intentional forgetting of emotional material

Joormann, Jutta; Tran, Tanya

doi:10.1080/02699930802416735

Cited by 62 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 34 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Worries not only occur in intense academic situations but are a major component of depression and other clinical disorders (9). Expressive writing, in which people repeatedly write about a traumatic or emotional experience over several weeks or months, has been shown to be an effective technique for decreasing rumination in depressed individuals (10).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Writing About Testing Worries Boosts Exam Performance in the Classroom

Ramirez

Beilock

2011

Science

341

319

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Two laboratory and two randomized field experiments tested a psychological intervention designed to improve students' scores on high-stakes exams and to increase our understanding of why pressure-filled exam situations undermine some students' performance. We expected that sitting for an important exam leads to worries about the situation and its consequences that undermine test performance. We tested whether having students write down their thoughts about an upcoming test could improve test performance. The intervention, a brief expressive writing assignment that occurred immediately before taking an important test, significantly improved students' exam scores, especially for students habitually anxious about test taking. Simply writing about one's worries before a high-stakes exam can boost test scores. F or many students, the desire to perform their best in academics is strong. Consequences for poor performance, especially on exams, include poor evaluations by mentors, teachers, and peers; lost scholarships; and relinquished educational opportunities. Yet despite the fact that students are often motivated to perform their best, the pressure-filled situations in which important tests occur can cause students to perform below their ability instead (1).The expression "choking under pressure" is used to describe what happens when people perform more poorly than expected given their skill level when there are large incentives for optimal performance and negative consequences for poor performance (2). Choking is a serious problem given that poor exam performance affects students' subsequent academic opportunities. It also limits potentially qualified students from participating in the talent pool tapped to fill advanced jobs in disciplines where the workforce is dwindling [e.g., science, technology, engineering, and mathematics workforce in the United States (3)]. Here we demonstrate how a 10-min. pre-exam intervention, derived from psychological theories of stress and performance, can prevent choking and enhance exam scores, particularly for students who habitually become anxious in testing situations.Several studies have shown that, when students feel an anxious desire to perform at a high level [i.e., performance pressure (4)], they worry about the situation and its consequences (5, 6). These worries compete for the working memory (WM) available for performance. WM is a shortterm memory system involved in the control and regulation of a limited amount of information immediately relevant to the task at hand (7). If the ability of WM to maintain task focus is disrupted because of situation-related worries, performance can suffer (8).Worries not only occur in intense academic situations but are a major component of depression and other clinical disorders (9). Expressive writing, in which people repeatedly write about a traumatic or emotional experience over several weeks or months, has been shown to be an effective technique for decreasing rumination in depressed individuals (10). Writing may alleviate the burden t...

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Writing About Testing Worries Boosts Exam Performance in the Classroom

Ramirez

Beilock

2011

Science

341

319

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Moreover, the degree of forgetting was significantly correlated with self-report measures of rumination and unwanted thoughts. Finally, Joormann and Tran (2009) demonstrated that participants who scored high on a trait measure of rumination exhibited reduced forgetting of negative material in this task.…”

Section: Cognitive Control and Inhibitionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Emotion regulation in depression: Examining the role of cognitive processes

Joormann

D’Avanzato

2010

Cognition & Emotion

Self Cite

209

160

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Ruminators process information in ways that make negative information salient. They attend to it more readily (Joormann, Dkane, & Gotlib, 2006), show difficulty disengaging from it (Koster, De Lissnyder, Derakshan, & De Raedt, 2011), and have trouble forgetting it (Bernblum & Mor, 2010;Joormann & Tran, 2009). Our findings add to this list by showing that ruminators find negative meaning in ambiguous material-in particular in ambiguous material where the negative interpretation is specific to rumination and not more generally negative.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%