Brooding and reflecting in an interpersonal context

Rumination consists of two components: brooding, which increases depressive feelings, and reflection, which appears to be unrelated to or protective against depression. The present study is the first to extend the intrapersonal constructs of brooding and reflection to the interpersonal context, thereby relying on previous work in the domain of co-rumination. In this two-wave longitudinal study, a community sample of 371 pupils (63.1% girls) aged 9-15 years was followed up over a three-month interval. Using items drawn from the Co-Rumination Questionnaire (Rose, 2002), a two-factor model distinguishing between co-brooding and co-reflection was validated using confirmatory factor analysis. Both co-brooding and co-reflection emerged as significant unique predictors of depressive symptoms over a three-month interval, above and beyond sex and baseline depressive symptoms. Co-brooding had a positive association with prospective depressive symptoms, whereas co-reflection was inversely related to prospective symptom levels. This pattern of results was unchanged when controlling for intrapersonal brooding and reflection. Post-hoc analyses revealed that co-brooding and co-reflection could be framed as higher order factors, each encompassing two lower-order factors and that the effects are carried by specific aspects of co-brooding and co-reflection, i.e., co-brooding on consequences and co-reflecting on causes of problems.