TY - JOUR
T1 - Some good news about rumination
T2 - Task-focused thinking after failure facilitates performance improvement
AU - Ciarocco, Natalie J.
AU - Vohs, Kathleen D.
AU - Baumeister, Roy F.
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - Is there an adaptive side to rumination? We tested whether rumination that is focused on correcting past mistakes and active goal achievement could produce positive outcomes; this is in contrast to rumination that focuses on the implications of failure (i.e., state rumination) and task-irrelevant rumination. in all studies, participants received failure feedback on an initial task. a second task similar to the first provided an opportunity for improvement. Studies 1 and 2 manipulated type of ruminative thought such that it was action-focused, state-focused, or task-irrelevant. action-focused rumination led to performance improvement relative to the other two conditions. experiment 3 allowed participants to ruminate naturalistically. the more that participants' rumination contained action-focused thoughts, the more their performance improved. hence, rumination can yield benefits if it focuses on correcting errors and goal attainment.
AB - Is there an adaptive side to rumination? We tested whether rumination that is focused on correcting past mistakes and active goal achievement could produce positive outcomes; this is in contrast to rumination that focuses on the implications of failure (i.e., state rumination) and task-irrelevant rumination. in all studies, participants received failure feedback on an initial task. a second task similar to the first provided an opportunity for improvement. Studies 1 and 2 manipulated type of ruminative thought such that it was action-focused, state-focused, or task-irrelevant. action-focused rumination led to performance improvement relative to the other two conditions. experiment 3 allowed participants to ruminate naturalistically. the more that participants' rumination contained action-focused thoughts, the more their performance improved. hence, rumination can yield benefits if it focuses on correcting errors and goal attainment.
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U2 - 10.1521/jscp.2010.29.10.1057
DO - 10.1521/jscp.2010.29.10.1057
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:78651319977
SN - 0736-7236
VL - 29
SP - 1057
EP - 1073
JO - Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology
JF - Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology
IS - 10
ER -