Why Do Bereaved Partners Experience Interfering Rumination?: Evidence for Deficits in Cognitive Inhibition

Abstract

Recurring rumination is strongly associated with grief reactions severity. The authors investigated whether deficits in cognitive inhibition were related to such a dysfunctional process. Inhibition was examined among 61 low- or high-ruminating bereaved partners in a negative affective priming task with grief-related negative and positive words. Results revealed impaired inhibition for grief-related information in comparison with negative and positive information in bereaved individuals with elevated rumination. When accounting for differences in grief reactions, the present findings did not however confirm the hypothesis of a direct link between variations in inhibition performances and rumination. Implications for future research and clinical perspectives are discussed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors wish to thank Nigel Field for his helpful editorship of this article.