Reduced concreteness of rumination in depression: A pilot study

We hypothesized that the reduced concreteness theory of worry (Stöber & Borkovec, 2002) would be applicable to negative recurrent thinking in general, including depressive rumination. To test this prediction, the current study compared the concreteness of problem descriptions of currently depressed (n = 30), recovered depressed (n = 29) and never-depressed (n = 30) individuals. Participants provided open-ended descriptions of two current major problems about which they repeatedly dwell. Blind ratings demonstrated reduced concreteness of the problem descriptions and associated perceived consequences reported by the depressed group relative to the recovered depressed and control groups, which did not differ from each other. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that recurrent thinking in depression involves reduced concreteness, paralleling the findings in GAD.