Moderators of the Association Between Co-Rumination and Depressive Symptoms in Emerging Adult Friendships
Abstract
Co-rumination, or perseverating about problems aloud with another individual, is an emotion regulation strategy enacted within relationships. Despite its association with depressive symptoms, co-rumination may benefit friendships. For example, the independent emotion regulation tendencies of each individual in the dyad may interact with co-rumination to exacerbate or protect against its negative effects on depressive experiences. This interaction might be particularly important during the transition from late adolescence to young adulthood when friendships are in flux and emotion regulation capacity is increasing. Therefore, the current study assessed whether emerging adult friends’ tendencies to enact rumination and reappraisal moderated the association between co-rumination and depressive symptoms. Path analyses revealed that the extent to which a co-ruminating individuals experienced depressive symptoms depended on the extent to which their friend reappraised: a positive, linear association between co-rumination and depressive symptoms emerged only for target participants whose friend was low in reappraisal use.
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Biographies
Lori Hazel is a PhD Student at Princeton University in the Department of Psychology where she studies emotional processes and interpersonal relationships under the supervision of Drs. Rebecca Carey and Erik Nook. She completed her B.A. in Psychology at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. During her time at Concordia she explored questions around how friends regulate their emotions together through co-rumination. She also studied dating strategies, including the well-known “playing hard-to-get” tactic. Her research is currently funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
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