Rumination as Interplay between Dispositional Antecedents and Situational Processing: Exploring

Abstract

The current study aimed to investigate the longitudinal trajectory of Self-Regulatory Executive Function Model in terms of metacognitive processing. The present study consisted of 4- timewaves measurement with an approximate time interval of four-months. The total participants were N= 514 at Time-1, N= 390 at Time-2, N= 280 at Time-3 and N=230 Time 4, selected purposively. Following the ethical guidelines, the informed consent was obtained, and participants completed a booklet of self-report inventories at each time-wave. The results showed adequate internal consistency coefficient for all measures from Time-1 to Time-4. The correlations on cross-sectional data represented significant associations between study variables that were parallel with previous findings. The Time-2 results indicated differences across demographics and between correlation across Time-1 and Time-2. Whereas linear multiple regression with Time-1 predictors and Time-2 outcome variables suggested significant positive predictive relationship between Control of Intrusive Thoughts (Time-1) and Emotion Oriented Coping (Time-2); Cognitive Self-consciousness, Punishment (time-1) and on Threat (Time-2) and Cognitive Self-consciousness (Time-1) and Loss (Time-2). The Time 3 represented inquiry using repeated measure analysis of variance (RM-ANOVA) majority of the comparisons showed statistically significant differences in cognitive mechanisms within 12-months period e.g., Positive Beliefs about Worry, Negative Beliefs about Worry, Cognitive Confidence, , Control of Intrusive Thoughts, Cognitive Self-consciousness, Positive Beliefs about Rumination, Worry, Punishment, Reappraisal, Emotion Oriented Coping, Avoidance Oriented Coping and Metaworry with medium effects sizes for Negative Beliefs about Worry and Negative Beliefs about Rumination while small but significant effects for the remaining metacognitive variables. The Time-4 results were based on the latent growth curve model XI Abstract XII (LGCM) that further explained the previous time-waves results through piecewise and quadratic growth models. LGCM for piecewise reflected phases of growth that depicted different slopes of growth factor within all time-waves results. The Metacognitive variables, Positive and Negative Beliefs about Rumination, Emotion and Avoidance oriented coping showed significant random variations from Time-1 to 2 with initial escalating trends for slopes in metacognitive self-regulation and in Time-3 to Time-4 a nonsignificant trend was observed. This suggested that individuals with greater values at time-3 tend to have lower scores or decline in time-4. Situational appraisal variables e.g., Threat, Loss and Anxious thoughts (Metaworry) showed nonsignificant variances depicting stability of cognitive challenges across time. The findings reflect meaningful metacognitive, thought control and beliefs about rumination inconsistencies across time, while consistent pattern of cognitive challenges in form of threat, loss and metaworry suggesting evidence for self-regulation processing with executive cognitive functioning.