Rumination, reflection, intrusive thoughts, and hallucination-proneness: towards a new model.
Although rumination has been proposed to play an important role in the creation of hallucinations, direct empirical tests of this proposal have not yet been performed. Employing a distinction between ruminative and reflective self-consciousness, we set out to test a new model of the relations among rumination, reflection, intrusive thoughts, thought suppression, social anxiety, and hallucination-proneness. This model proposed that rumination would be related to hallucination-proneness through the mediating variable of intrusive thoughts, but that reflection would not be related to hallucination-proneness. The model was tested in a student population (N=296) using path analyses. A modified version of the model was found to be a good fit to the data, once a direct path from reflection to hallucination-proneness had been added. As hypothesized, rumination was related to hallucination-proneness only indirectly, through the mediating variable of intrusive thoughts. Implications for interventions and future directions for research are considered.
Jones
Simon R
SR
Department of Psychology, Durham University, South Road, Durham, UK. s.r.jones@durham.ac.uk
Fernyhough
Charles
C
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006212:Hallucinations / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011594:Psychometrics; D012094:Repression, Psychology; D013850:Thinking; D055815:Young Adult