Introduction: Distress has been assumed to result from exposure to repetitive thought (RT). However, if RT is viewed as internally generated stressors, both exposure and affective reactivity to RT could play roles in generating distress.
Methods: Three studies (young adults, N=99; midlife women, N=111; older adults, N=159) assessed exposure and reactivity to daily RT and tested whether neuroticism was related to individual differences in both exposure and affective reactivity.
Results: Across all 3 studies, reactivity effects on depressive symptoms exceeded those of exposure to RT, and neuroticism was associated with more exposure and greater affective reactivity. Furthermore, RT exposure and reactivity accounted for most when not all of the relationship between neuroticism and depressive symptoms.
Discussion and conclusions: Further consideration of both exposure and affective reactivity to RT can not only increase the explanatory power of this construct but also suggest effective targets for intervention.
Keywords: daily diary; depression; distress; exposure; neuroticism; reactivity; repetitive thought; rumination.