When Support Seeking Backfires: Co-Rumination, Excessive Reassurance Seeking, and Depressed Mood in the Daily Lives of Young Adults

Abstract

Research has linked depression to maladaptive variants of support seeking, including co-rumination (CR) and excessive reassurance seeking (ERS), which may contribute to symptom onset and maintenance. Although both CR and ERS are associated with depression, insufficient research has examined how daily behaviors and experiences interact with trait-level CR and ERS to predict daily mood. Fifty-one undergraduates, over-selected for internalizing symptoms, completed baseline assessments, followed by a 14-day daily diary assessing behaviors, stressors, and mood. Daily problem-related talk was associated with elevations in depressed mood for participants with high (but not low) trait CR, particularly for those with major depression. Trait ERS similarly moderated the association between daily reassurance seeking and depressed mood. CR, ERS, and daily reassurance seeking each predicted greater affective reactivity to daily stressors. Results align with daily processes hypothesized by CR and ERS models, and suggest that both constructs may be best understood within a diathesis-stress framework.

Characterizing Interpersonal Difficulties Among Young Adults Who Engage in Nonsuicidal Self-Injury Using a Daily Diary

“…This could explain why individuals with (vs. without) NSSI have been found to report higher rates of conflict and violence in their romantic relationships (see Levesque, Lafontaine, Bureau, Cloutier, & Dandurand, 2010;Rizzo et al, 2014;Taliaferro & Muehlenkamp, 2015). Indeed, results of this study suggest that individuals with NSSI are more likely to seek excessive reassurance from others-a relationship behavior linked to relationship stress and depression (see Evraire & Dozois, 2011;Starr, 2015;Stewart & Harkness, 2015). Thus, although individuals with NSSI may not experience their daily interactions with romantic partners as less supportive than those of individuals without NSSI, their relationship behaviors could have a detrimental impact on the quality and health of their romantic relationships in the long term.…”

The Intensity Effect in Adolescent Close Friendships: Implications for Aggressive and Depressive Symptomatology

“…Although this behavior has the potential to be adaptive if the attitudes and behaviors being discussed (and therefore reinforced) are healthy, it also has the potential to lead to negative outcomes, even within a close, trusting friendship. A quite similar process occurs during co‐rumination as friends reciprocally encourage nonproductive problem talk and dwelling about a particular problem (Starr, ), as well as during deviancy training, as friends reinforce aggressive or rule‐breaking behaviors and values (Dishion, McCord, & Poulin, ). Conversely, teens low in autonomy may keep details about their feelings from their friends, impeding social reinforcement of those ideas or values because their opinions are not apparent to their close peers.…”

An Experimental Investigation of Co-rumination, Problem Solving, and Distraction

“…However, co-rumination was not related to higher levels of negative affectivity when levels of life stress were low. Starr (2015) also utilized a daily diary design and revealed that highly co-ruminative individuals with current depression showed elevated depressed mood on days that included more time spent discussing problems with others or engaging in problem talk;…”