Negative thinking in adolescents (young adults): differences and similarities between worrying and rumination.

Negative thinking is part of daily life. Some people have a strong tendency to
worry about all kinds of things while other people don't. In the psychological
literature, two forms of negative thinking are distinguished: rumination and
worrying. Both forms of negative thinking are ways of dealing with depressed or
anxious mood states. The aims of rumination and worrying in this sense are to
find solutions. That is, people who ruminate or worry are convinced of the fact
that this is a way out for their depressed or anxious feelings. Nevertheless,
rumination and worry do not seem adaptive but rahter maladaptive. Rumination is
related to the maintenance of depressed symptoms, whereas worrying is related
to complaints of anxious feelings. In this study, the content of rumination and
worrying will be examined as well as their role in psychopatholgoy
(particularly in relation to depression and anxiety).

The aim of this research is explaining the difference between worrying and
rumination in adolescents.

The following research question is investigated:

On which dimensions can rumination and worrying be distinguished?
For answering this question, a special statistical technique called
multidimensional scaling will be used. This technique is a tool to explore
underlying dimensions of negative thinking (i.e., rumination and worrying). We
expect at least one dimension, related to the point in time in which rumination
is focused on the presence and past while worrying is linked to the future. As
multidimensional scaling is an exploratory technique, no further hypotheses
with respect to the number of dimensions are presented.

This research is cross-sectional. There will only be one moment of measurement.
Participants will be asked to rank the rumination and worry items.

Participants are requested to rank the individual items of four questionnaires
of rumination and worrying. The are no disadvantages of this study for
participants, except for the fact that participants are confronted with these
questionnaires. We do not expect any problems. If there are any, participants
are allowed to stop at any time. If participants feel unpleasant after
completion of the study, it is still possible to contact the researchers.