Testing the impaired disengagement hypothesis: the role of attentional control and positive metacognitive beliefs in depression

Abstract

The impaired disengagement hypothesis holds that people ruminate – and thus increase their risk for depression – due to impaired attentional control and conflict signaling. We tested this hypothesis by examining the role of attentional control and conflict signaling (operationalized as positive metacognitive beliefs) in rumination and depressive symptoms. We expected that attentional control and positive metacognitive beliefs would be associated with depressive symptoms and that these associations would be cross-sectionally mediated by rumination. We tested two community samples (Study 1, N= 289; Study 2, N= 292), assessing attentional control, positive metacognitive beliefs, rumination, and depressive symptoms. In both studies, attentional control and positive metacognitive beliefs were significantly associated with rumination and depression, and path analyses corroborated the proposed mediation model. Our findings support the impaired disengagement hypothesis, and suggest that attentional control and positive metacognitive beliefs may be informative in the personalization of depression assessment and treatment.