Wise After the Event - Is Rumination Always Bad?
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Wise After the Event - Is rumination always bad? An examination of the effect of rumination style on wisdom in a depressed adult population.
IRAS ID
213338
Contact name
Jennifer Cadman
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of East Anglia
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 5 months, 30 days
Research summary
Depression is often caused by difficult life events. When people are depressed they tend to think in a more negative way and remember past events in a more general way. This can make it harder for people to learn from past experiences. People with depression also often dwell on things that have happened in the past and think over and over about them. When this is about difficult events it can make people feel more depressed. However, thinking about stressful life events in a structured way has been shown to help people gain personal growth after difficult events.
People who are more able to learn from experience have been shown to overcome negative experiences more quickly and to have increased feelings of well-being. How someone thinks about an event is likely to impact on their ability to learn from experiences, however no research has looked at this. This study aims to look at whether teaching people to think about difficult events in a specific structured way can increase learning and positively impact on low mood.
All participants will be over 18 and currently experiencing depression and they will be randomly assigned to one of two groups. Both groups will be asked to think about a difficult life event. One group will then be asked questions to encourage them to think about this event in a certain way. The other group will be guided through a relaxation exercise. Both groups will be asked to practice their exercise for two weeks. Everyone will complete a set of questionnaires at the start and end of the study and the scores on the questionnaires will be compared.
It is hoped that this will help us to better understand how different ways of thinking about a life event effect wisdom when people have depression.
REC name
East of England - Essex Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/EE/0283
Date of REC Opinion
6 Sep 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion