Preventing Worry and Rumination by Induced Positive Emotion

BACKGROUND Thus study aimed to test the hypothesis that positive emotion can quell or undo the lingering worry and rumination following induced negative emotion. METHODS 32 female students in grade 1 of high school were randomly recruited and assigned in two experimental and control groups. They completed questionnaires in a pretest that are listed herewith: (1) Rumination questionnaire; (2) Two scales of the big five factorial questionnaire (extraversion - introversion; (3) MMPI(2); (4) Penn-state worry questionnaire. Then for the first group a sad movie, for the second group a cheerful movie, and for the third group a neutral movie was played, and the fourth group remained without intervention. Next day, all the group members completed the worry and rumination questionnaire again. Research findings were analyzed using covariance analysis and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). RESULTS Those participants whose attention was turned toward the cheerful movie recovered from negative emotions (rumination and worry) more than those who saw either a neutral or sad movie or remained without intervention. CONCLUSIONS Positive emotion is effective on negative emotion like worry and rumination. This effect is called the undoing effect of positive emotions.