BRIEF REPORT Relationships Between Depressive Rumination, Anger Rumination, and Borderline Personality Features Ruth A. Baer and Shannon E. Sauer University of Kentucky We examined relationships between depressive rumination, anger rumination, and features of borderline personality disorder in a sample of 93 students with a wide range of borderline symptoms. All completed self-report measures of borderline features; trait-level negative affect; depressive and anger rumination; and current symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. Depressive and anger rumination were strongly asso- ciated with borderline features after controlling for comorbid symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. Both types of rumination showed significant incremental validity over trait-level sadness, anger, and general negative affect in predicting borderline features. Relationships with borderline features were stronger for anger rumination than for depressive rumination. Relationships between trait-level negative affect and bor- derline features were substantially reduced when anger rumination was included in regression models, suggesting the need for longitudinal analyses of mediation. Findings suggest that severity of borderline symptoms is influenced by ruminative thinking in response to negative affect, especially anger. Keywords: borderline personality features, depressive rumination, anger rumination Rumination is a maladaptive form of nega- tively valenced, self-focused, repetitive think- ing about symptoms of distress and their causes, consequences, and implications. A large body of research has focused specifically on depres- sive rumination, in which individuals repeti- tively dwell on their symptoms when feeling sad, blue, or depressed. Depressive rumination has been shown to intensify and maintain neg- ative mood, impair concentration, memory, and problem solving, reduce motivation for instru- mental behavior, and predict the onset of future depressive episodes. Although depressive rumi- nation is associated with neuroticism, it predicts variance in depression after controlling for neu- roticism. Recent studies also have suggested that depressive rumination contributes to the etiology and maintenance of anxiety, posttrau- matic stress, disordered eating, substance abuse, and emotional reactivity to stressful events (No- len-Hoeksema, Wisco, & Lyubomirsky, 2008; Watkins, 2008). Because of its strong associations with neg- ative affect, emotional reactivity, and dysregu- lated behavior, several authors have suggested that depressive rumination may also be com- mon in borderline personality disorder (BPD). Abela, Payne, and Moussaly (2003) found that patients with BPD and major depressive disor- der (MDD) had higher levels of depressive ru- mination than those with only MDD. Smith, Grandin, Alloy, and Abramson (2006) and Selby, Anestis, Bender, and Joiner (2009) found that depressive rumination was significantly as- sociated with BPD symptoms after controlling for current depression. However, none of these studies controlled for neuroticism, which is known to be high in BPD (Morey & Zanarini, 2000). Although neuroticism increases the risk of psychopathology, it is possible to be high in neuroticism without having a mental disorder (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Recent work has sug- gested that how people respond to their negative affect is at least as important to their mental health as the frequency or intensity with which This article was published Online First November 15, 2010. Ruth A. Baer and Shannon E. Sauer, Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky. Correspondence concerning this article should be ad- dressed to Ruth A. Baer, Department of Psychology, 115 Kastle Hall, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506- 0044. E-mail: rbaer@email.uky.edu Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment © 2010 American Psychological Association 2011, Vol. 2, No. 2, 142–150 1949-2715/10/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0019478 142