Relationship between trait repetitive negative thinking styles and symptoms of psychopathology

•Worry, rumination, and anticipatory processing were all related to social anxiety.•Only Time 1 worry predicted Time 2 social anxiety.•Time 1 social anxiety predicted Time 2 anticipatory processing and brooding.•Reciprocal prospective relationship between worry and GAD symptoms.•Reciprocal prospective relationship between rumination and depressive symptoms.

Anticipatory processing (AP) is a repetitive negative thinking (RNT) style associated with social anxiety that has been excluded in studies of repetitive thought (e.g., worry and rumination). The following studies examined whether individual differences in AP were associated with social anxiety symptoms above and beyond worry and rumination in undergraduate samples. Study 1 (N = 326) examined the role of trait AP, worry, and rumination in predicting symptoms of social anxiety, depression, and trait anxiety and found that all three RNT styles predicted social anxiety, but only worry predicted trait anxiety and only rumination predicted depressive symptoms. Study 2 (N = 353) used a prospective design to examine how cognitions and symptoms reciprocally interact and found that only worry predicted future social anxiety, but social anxiety predicted later AP and rumination. Results suggest worry may serve as a risk factor for social anxiety, whereas AP and rumination may serve as maintenance factors. Furthermore, worry and rumination may be transdiagnostic, whereas AP may be specific to social anxiety.