Illumination | Fall 2007

'It is easier for girls to think that if talking about their problems makes them feel good, then talking about their problems a bunch will make them feel even better.'

Using methodology similar to that of her first study, Rose had about 1,000 students from four rural Missouri school districts fill out questionnaires during the fall semester, and then again six months later during the spring semester. The results not only confirmed the findings of Rose's first study, but revealed a startling effect that co-rumination was having on girls: Co-rumination appeared to be increasing their levels of depression and anxiety over time. "This was only true for girls, not for boys," Rose says. "I was a little surprised."

But not only did co-rumination aggravate the girls' depression and anxiety, their emotional distress also predicted increasing amounts of co-rumination. "We called it a vicious cycle," Rose says. It's a cycle, she adds, that will be difficult to stop.

Rose doesn't want her research to be interpreted in a way that would stop children from seeking help from their friends. "But it's possible to get too much of a good thing," she says. "We need to take another look at whether their friendships are doing harm. We already knew that kids without friends were at high risk of depression. But a real risk of this past research is that we've been lulled into a false sense of security about girls who have friends. We feel confident they're going to be OK."

There are, in fact, a variety of reasons why girls may suffer from co-rumination, while boys do not. "One of the reasons girls co-ruminate so much is that what is happening in their social relationships is so ambiguous," she says. Girls fret more over such things as whether they are being snubbed or excluded, for example. Boys' emotional conflicts tend to be more direct, so there's not as much to speculate about. And there is also an unwritten code of conduct for girls that deems it inconsiderate or even rude for a girl to ignore a friend's problems or concerns.

"It's sort of considered her job to make sure her friend is OK," Rose says. "As a result, it's harder for problems to go away." Girls also may think about problems in a way that makes them more depressed and anxious. They may be more likely to take personal responsibility for their problems while boys may be more likely to blame others.

Rose is midway through a third major study that will try to shed light on what exactly goes on when kids co-ruminate. For this research, she has equipped her lab with a well-appointed observation room. It has three prominent video cameras mounted on the room's walls and microphones tucked into light fixtures hanging from the ceiling.

In this tiny room, pairs of best friends from seventh and tenth-grade classes meet alone for 15 minutes with instructions to talk about a problem they are having. Again, with the help of a host of graduate and undergraduate assistants, 100 pairs of students went through the observation room this summer. Nine months later, they will fill out co-rumination questionnaires.

The process will be repeated for the next two summers until Rose has videos of about 300 pairs of friends. The kids in the study also are given Palm Pilot handheld computers to carry with them. Whenever they have an interaction with someone that lasts more than five minutes, they are supposed to answer anywhere from about 15 to 45 questions that the computer poses.

Published by the Office of Research.