Response styles and cognitive and affective symptoms of depression

We translated the Response Style Questionnaire [RSQ; Nolen-Hoeksema, S., & Morrow, J. (1991). A prospective study of depression and posttraumatic stress symptoms after a natural disaster: The 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 115–121] into Japanese, and investigated the reliability and validity of the Ruminative Response scale (RRS), and Distractive Response scale (DRS) of the RSQ in two Japanese student populations. In Study 1, 471 (328 men and 143 women) undergraduates completed the RSQ. The internal consistency and test–retest reliability of the two scales were confirmed. Moreover, the concurrent validity of the RRS was confirmed. In Study 2, we investigated the predictive validity of the two scales, and the relationship of the two scales with affective symptoms and cognitive symptoms of depression. A total of 98 (80 men and 18 women) undergraduates participated in a longitudinal study with 2 months interval. Results of path analyses showed that the RRS and DRS predicted rumination and distracting activities to depressed mood, respectively. Furthermore, the relation between rumination and cognitive symptoms, and between distracting activities and affective symptoms were found.