Boundary conditions and buffering effects: Does depressive symptomology moderate the effectiveness of distanced-analysis for facilitating adaptive self-reflection?

Recent findings indicate that a critical factor determining whether people's attempts to adaptively analyze negative experiences succeed or fail is the type of self-perspective (self-immersed vs. self-distanced) they adopt while analyzing negative feelings. The present research examined whether these findings generalize to individuals displaying high levels of depression symptoms who are particularly vulnerable to rumination. Findings revealed that the effectiveness of self-distancing for attenuating emotional reactivity increased linearly with depression symptoms. Moreover, mediation analyses revealed that participants tendency to recount vs reconstrue their experience accounted for the regulatory effects of self-distancing on emotional reactivity regardless of depression symptoms.