DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW RUMINATION SCALE

Abstract

A new Brief Rumination Scale was constructed to measure rumination as repetitive thoughts about negative past events and regrets. Its good psychometric properties were established in a heterogeneous Bulgarian sample of 1274 healthy individuals – one-factor structure, high enough internal consistency, proven convergent, discriminant and intentional validity. It was found that rumination decreased with past positive time orientation and present hedonistic time orientation. Rumination increased with past negative time orientation and proneness to dysfunctional impulsivity. Regarding social differences in rumination, it was found that the participants whose income was above the medium (but not the highest one) and who were living in cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants were more prone to moderate rumination than expected – they emphasized on unfavorable events in their past and expressed regret about more omitted opportunities in their life. A brief, valid and reliable measure of rumination would shorten the process of conducting a study and would make it more probable the subjects to agree to participate in the study in this way enriching the scientific knowledge. Keywords: dysfunctional impulsivity, rumination measurement, scale development, time orientation