Ruminative thinking mediates the effects of exposure to adverse life events on psychotic-like experiences
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction: A growing literature has shown that exposure to adverse life events during childhood or adolescence is associated with the presence of psychotic-like experiences (PLEs), which is in turn associated with the risk of psychotic outcomes. Ruminative thinking, i.e., the tendency to dwell on particular issues or ideas, may affect the perceived aversiveness and ability to cope with adverse life events. However, the role that rumination plays in the relationship between adverse life events and the presence of PLEs remains unclear. The purpose of this study is to assess the association between adverse life events and PLEs in a longitudinal sample of young adults and adolescents, and to investigate whether this relationship is mediated by ruminative thinking. Methods We used a longitudinal naturalistic sample of 706 volunteers assessed at ages 18 and 22 years, within the Imagen consortium. Lifetime occurrence of adverse life events (i.e., events perceived as strongly negative by participants) was investigated using the Life Events Questionnaire. The Community Assessment of Psychic Experience (CAPE-42) served to assess the presence of PLEs, while ruminative thinking was investigated through the Ruminative Response Scale. Results Results showed that both frequency of PLEs and their persistence over time were associated with greater adverse life events exposure (r = 0.32, p < 0.001 and F1 = 9.8; p < 0.001, respectively) and greater ruminative response (r = 0.66, p < 0.001 and F1 = 94.9; p < 0.001, respectively). Mediation analyses showed that relationship between adverse life events and PLEs frequency was partially mediated by rumination (direct effect Z: 5.4, p < 0.001; indirect effect Z: 6.9, p < 0.001; total effect Z: 5.9, p < 0.001). Considering changes between the two assessment timepoints, relationship between PLEs variation between 18 and 22 years and adverse life events occurred during the same period was partially mediated by changes in rumination (direct effect Z: 2.8, p < 0.005; indirect effect Z: 4.3, p < 0.001; total effect Z: 4.3; p < 0.001). Discussion Overall, our findings confirm that the presence of adverse life events may increase the risk of experiencing PLEs in healthy individuals and suggest that dysfunctional coping strategies, such as ruminative thinking, may be related to psychosis proneness. Results do not disentangle whether individuals with greater risk for psychosis tend to ruminate more or whether rumination exacerbates psychosis risk.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".