The emotional impact of self-criticism on self-reflection and rumination

Objectives: The goals of this study were to determine whether self-reflection is a beneficial exercise for highly self-critical individuals and to examine the effects of self-focused thought including reflection and rumination on mood. This was investigated by measuring the levels of self-criticism, as well as mood before and after exposure to a reflective prompt or a ruminative prompt.

Design: Experimental design with random assignment to reflection, rumination or control groups.

Methods: 243 participants from a sample recruited on prolific provided demographic information and completed measures of current mood and self-criticism. All participants were then asked to remember a time they made a mistake that had a significant impact on them and describe the mistake briefly. Participants were then randomly assigned to a self-focus condition (reflection, rumination or control). After being assigned and completing the prompt, their mood was measured again.

Results: Hierarchical multiple regressions were used to measure the potential combined effects of self-criticism and self-focused thought on change in emotion. The results showed that participants with high levels of maladaptive self-criticism (hated self-subscale) experienced a significant decrease in negative emotions, indicating improved mood.

Conclusions: This suggests that reflection may be a beneficial exercise for highly self-critical individuals. Participants in the rumination group experienced no significant change in emotion, indicating how rumination can perpetuate negative affect and is therefore an important issue to be addressed in psychotherapy.