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Previous research on depressive rumination has shown its association with undesirable outcomes and mental disorders. However, much less is known about responses to positive affect, especially outside the clinical population. Researchers of the present study identified positive rumination and dampening as two affect regulation strategies, where the former was distinguished into self-focused rumination and emotion-focused rumination. It was expected that positive rumination would positively predict subjective well-being and motivational persistence whereas dampening would be negatively related to the two variables. Data were collected through online self-report measures (n=345). Results indicate that a significant positive correlation exists between positive rumination and subjective well-being, while dampening is negatively related to it. Motivational persistence is found to be positively predicted by positive rumination. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Keywords: subjective well-being, motivational persistence, positive rumination, dampening, positive affect
In everyday life, people respond to positive events and subsequent positive emotions in different ways. While ruminating on negative events has been consistently linked to negative outcomes such as low job satisfaction and maintenance of depressive symptoms (Karabati et al., 2019; Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 2008) ruminating on positive thoughts has received relatively less attention. The current study seeks to elucidate how ruminative responses to positive emotions influence subjective well-being and motivational persistence.
Upon experiencing positive affect, people respond to it either by savouring or by muting the effect (Bryant, 2003; Parrott, 1993). Positive rumination is marked by recurrent thoughts about good qualities of oneself, the desirable circumstances in one's life (selffocused positive rumination) and about positive affective experiences (emotion-focused positive rumination). However, positive emotions can also be regulated with the help of a process known as dampening, in which mental strategies are used to reduce the intensity and duration of a positive mood state (Feldman et al., 2008). Gross's emotion regulation theory (1999) conceptualises that both dampening and positive rumination are cognitive responsecentred emotion regulation strategies which attempt to modify an emotion when it is experienced. Thus, the positive mood is enhanced or maintained in positive rumination, while it is decreased or eliminated in case of dampening (Gross & John, 2003).
Subjective well-being (SWB) is an extensively studied topic within positive psychology. A body of research explains how certain characteristics have been more consistently linked to...