The Science of Co-Rumination: When Talking It Out Keeps You In It

Key findings

1. 2002

   In 608 third- to ninth-graders, co-rumination — extensively discussing problems, speculating about them, and focusing on negative feelings with a friend — was related to higher-quality friendships and to more depression and anxiety, and girls reported more of it than boys, helping account for both their closer friendships and their greater internalizing symptoms. ↗

2. 2007

   Followed over time, co-rumination predicted increases in positive friendship quality and — especially among girls — increases in depressive and anxiety symptoms: the same behavior carried a social benefit and an emotional cost, which the paper frames as the socioemotional trade-offs of co-rumination. ↗

Key findings

1. 1991

   People's characteristic responses to depressed mood shape its course: those who ruminate — passively and repetitively focusing on their symptoms and their possible causes and consequences — experience longer and more severe episodes of depressed mood than those who distract themselves or take action. ↗

2. 2008

   Two decades of evidence, reviewed in 'Rethinking Rumination', show rumination predicts the onset of depression, enhances negative thinking, impairs problem solving and instrumental behavior, and erodes social support — even though ruminators believe the dwelling gives them insight. ↗

Key findings

1. 2008

   When young women were experimentally led to co-ruminate about a problem, observed co-rumination was associated with a significant increase in cortisol — controlling for self-reported co-rumination and pre-discussion levels — suggesting co-ruminating can amplify the hormonal stress response to life stressors rather than discharge it. ↗

2. 2011

   In young women's friendships, it was the focus on negative affect during problem talk in particular that predicted increases in stress markers — cortisol and salivary alpha-amylase — suggesting co-rumination has separable adaptive and maladaptive components. ↗