Perseverative cognition
Perseverative cognition [1] [2] is a collective term from scientific psychology for continuous thinking about negative events in the past or in the future (e.g. worry, rumination, brooding, but also mind wandering about negative topics [3] etc.). The psychological concept of perseverative cognition helps to explain how psychological stress, such as work stress and marital stress, leads to disease, such as cardiovascular disease.
The perseverative cognition hypothesis
The ‘perseverative cognition hypothesis’ [2] holds that stressful events cannot affect someone’s health, unless they worry about these stressful events. It proposes that perseverative thoughts could be a mediator of the health damage due to stress. Since its publication evidence for this hypothesis has been accumulated (Verkuil et al., 2010).
Conscious or unconscious?
It seems that part of perseverative cognition is unconscious.
See also
References
- ^ [Brosschot, J.F., Pieper, S. & Thayer J.F. (2005) Expanding Stress Theory: Prolonged Activation And Perseverative Cognition. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 30(10):1043-9]
- ^ a b [Brosschot, J.F, Gerin, W. & Thayer, J.F. (2006) Worry and health: the perseverative cognition hypothesis. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 60, 113-12]
- ^ [Ottaviani, C., Shapiro, D., Couyoumdjian, A.(2013) Flexibility as the key for somatic health: From mind wandering to perseverative cognition. Biological Psychology, 94(1), 38-43.]