Poster #213 - Temperamental and Cognitive Factors Underlying the Continuity of Rumination in Middle Childhood

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - Social, Emotional, Personality

Integrative Statement

Rumination is a response to stress characterized by inwardly-focused attention and negative, self-perpetuating cognitions (Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 2008). While the association between rumination and internalizing issues in children and adolescents has been well-established in the literature (e.g., Rood et al., 2010), what factors underlie the developmental trajectory of rumination over the course of childhood remains unclear. The goal of the current study is to explore how individual differences in temperament and self-regulation contribute to the progression of rumination over the course of middle childhood. Temperamental shyness is characterized by reticence and withdrawal in novel social situations (Henderson, 2010), while inhibitory control is related to heightened self-monitoring in social contexts (Buzzell et al., 2017). Coupled with the host of social stressors that accompany children’s first years at school, these factors may potentiate ruminative thinking throughout middle childhood. As such, we hypothesized that higher levels of shyness and inhibitory control would contribute to the continuity of rumination over time.

Children and their parents were recruited to participate in a short-term longitudinal study of temperament, self-regulation, and social cognition. Eighty-eight children participated at age 7 (M = 7.31, SD = .301, 51% female), and 44 children have since returned at age 8 (M = 8.43, SD = .301, 51% female, data collection ongoing). At each time-point, children completed the Child Shyness Questionnaire (CSQ; Crozier, 1995), a self-report measure of temperamental shyness, as well as the Children’s Response Styles Questionnaire (CRSQ; Abela et al., 2002), a self-report measure of children’s cognitive, behavioral, affective tendencies in response to negative affect. Specifically, the Ruminative Response subscale of the CRSQ was used as an index of children’s ruminative tendencies. Further, at each time-point, parents completed the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF; Gioia et el., 2000), a measure of executive dysfunction in day-to-day life. From this measure, the Inhibit subscale was used as an index of children’s inhibitory control (higher scores indicating more difficulty with inhibition).

A series of hierarchical linear regressions were run to examine the cross-lagged relation between 1) rumination and shyness (Fig. 1) and 2) rumination and inhibition (Fig. 2). For all analyses, 8-year measures were first regressed onto their 7-year counterparts. All initial models were significant, ps < .05, indicating relative stability in these constructs within children from ages 7 to 8. Contrary to our hypothesis, the addition of 7-year shyness did not improve the prediction of 8-year rumination, β = -.158, ΔR^2 = .020, p = .340 . However, adding 7-year rumination did significantly improve the prediction of 8-year shyness, β = .303, ΔR^2 = .074, p = .039. Shifting focus from shyness to inhibition, the addition of 7-year inhibition marginally improved the prediction of 8-year rumination, β = -.280, ΔR^2 = .077, p = .057. Conversely, 7-year rumination did not improve the prediction of 8-year inhibition, β = -.134, ΔR^2 = .018, p = .185. These results suggest greater inhibitory control relates to an increased tendency to ruminate, while rumination itself leads to increases in shyness across middle childhood.

Authors

• McLennon Wilson, Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo
  Presenting Author

• Heather Henderson, Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo
  Non-Presenting Author