Date of Graduation

Spring 2026

Document Type

Thesis Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

Committee Chairperson

Geeta Shivde, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Karen Mitchell, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Michael Roche, Ph.D.

Abstract

Within current literature pertaining to common psychological disorders, such as major depressive disorder, rumination is cited as a primary cause of associated cognitive deficits. Ruminative processes involve negative, self-referential thinking, and typically occur in a repetitive manner. Although trait rumination has been studied at high rates, the process of studying induced, state rumination has benefits of its own, in that such a process allows researchers to examine the effects of active rumination in laboratory settings. Within the present study, the goal is to assess the effects of rumination induction on participants’ response times in a computer-based cognitive task containing emotional and non-emotional material. The task requires participants to respond as quickly as possible (by pressing the space bar) once they have identified the gender (male or female) or emotion (angry or neutral) associated with a sequence of faces presented on screen. It is hypothesized that induced state ruminators will require significantly more time to make categorization judgments about emotional material in the task, as compared to control participants. Participants’ respective levels of trait rumination were measured using the Ruminative Response Scale (1991) before the task began. All participants required significantly more time to respond to emotional material. This finding suggests that induced state rumination requires further investigation, through studies like this one.

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