Everyday antecedents of rumination and the influence of sex on rumination triggers

Research suggests that interpersonal events, lack of control over one's emotions and low mastery over events might contribute to trait level rumination. This study uses an ecological momentary assessment (Stone & Shiffman, 1994) design to investigate the everyday antecedents of rumination, and how these antecedents might differ by sex. We used PDA devices on which participants rated their events, mood, control appraisals and rumination. A multilevel modeling approach was employed to analyze the data. We found that both interpersonal and academic events tended to precede rumination and that lack of control over one's emotions led to a continued increase in rumination across assessments. We found that women ruminate more over academic events than men and had a harder time discontinuing rumination in response to a lack of control over their emotions. Nonetheless, this study shows that in terms of antecedents, there are few sex differences in the process of rumination.