Ethnoracial Group Differences in the Effects of Rumination on Psychological Well-being

Background: Is rumination always associated with poorer mental health? Although some work suggests that the answer to this question is “yes”, some studies suggest that there are adaptive and maladaptive types of rumination that have distinct influences on mental health. Moreover, a growing number of studies have now shown rumination to have weaker maladaptive effects among individuals from interdependent cultural contexts (e.g., Asian Americans). The current study examined ethnoracial group differences in the use and associations of rumination types (i.e., brooding, casual analysis, reflective pondering, and problem-solving analysis) with depressive symptoms and life satisfaction among a diverse sample of Asian Americans, Latinx Americans, and European Americans. Methods: : 198 Asian Americans, 168 Latinx Americans, and 235 European Americans recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk completed an online cross-sectional survey. Results: : Controlling for other rumination types, brooding emerged as a maladaptive type of rumination with strong associations with greater depressive symptoms and lower life satisfaction among all ethnoracial groups. In contrast, problem-solving analysis emerged as an adaptive type of rumination with associations with lower depressive symptoms and greater life satisfaction among Asian and Latinx Americans only, whereas this relationship was not significant among European Americans. Discussion: : Findings suggest the importance of considering culture in distinguishing between adaptive versus maladaptive types of rumination. The strength of the association of rumination types with psychological well-being varied by ethnoracial group in theoretically expected ways. Implications for culturally sensitive interventions are discussed.