It takes two to co-ruminate: Examining co-rumination as a dyadic and dynamic system

Co-rumination, defined as when individuals perseverate on problems with each other, focus excessively on negative feelings, and cyclically discuss the causes and consequences of problems, is often examined from the perspective of the person seeking support about a problem or by averaging both dyad members’ individual ratings of co-rumination. This approach muddles how each dyad member contributes to the “co” of co-rumination and may have implications for understanding prior work that has shown associations between co-rumination and intrapersonal and interpersonal well-being. We leveraged state space grids to examine co-rumination as a dyadic and dynamic system, as constituted by the temporal unfolding of each dyad member’s self-rated social rumination throughout their discussion. From 2019-2020, 85 primarily White and female college-aged close friend dyads engaged in a support discussion. After, friends viewed their recorded discussion and rated their individual contributions to the co-rumination process (i.e., social rumination) every 30 seconds across the eight-minute conversation. Results revealed that the more both dyad members got “stuck” engaging in mutually high social rumination (i.e., co-rumination), the more they perceived each other as responsive and supportive and viewed the problem as more solved. In contrast, the more that only the person disclosing the problem was stuck in high levels of social rumination or when dyads more flexibly engaged in social rumination, the more individuals with the problem benefited from the conversation, but responders benefited less. Examining co-rumination dyadically and dynamically can reveal when and for whom co-rumination processes are associated with costs and benefits.