Brooding Rumination and Internalizing Symptoms in Childhood: Investigating Symptom Specificity in a Multi-Wave Prospective Study.

Specificity of brooding rumination as a cognitive vulnerability for anxiety and depression was examined using the tripartite theory as a framework. The three factors of the tripartite theory (negative affect, positive affect, and physiological hyperarousal) were included in the same structural equation model (latent growth curves) to test three competing hypotheses: brooding rumination as a depression-specific vulnerability (i.e., brooding uniquely predicts shared negative affect + specific positive affect), anxiety-specific vulnerability (i.e., brooding predicts shared negative affect + specific physiological hyperarousal), or shared risk vulnerability (i.e., brooding predicts negative affect, the shared tripartite component common to both anxiety and depression). Data from children in 2nd through 7th grades (N = 303) were collected in three waves over two years. Results revealed brooding to be uniquely associated with initial levels of negative affect and physiological hyperarousal, thus providing support for the anxiety-specific vulnerability. Results from the multigroup analysis confirmed that the relationship among these variables did not differ across sex. Longitudinal associations between brooding and the tripartite factors are also discussed.