Moderators of the Association Between Co-Rumination and Depressive Symptoms in Emerging Adult Friendships

Co-rumination, or perseverating about problems aloud with another individual, is an emotion regulation strategy enacted within relationships. Despite its association with depressive symptoms, co-rumination may benefit friendships. For example, the independent emotion regulation tendencies of each individual in the dyad may interact with co-rumination to exacerbate or protect against its negative effects on depressive experiences. This interaction might be particularly important during the transition from late adolescence to young adulthood when friendships are in flux and emotion regulation capacity is increasing. Therefore, the current study assessed whether emerging adult friends’ tendencies to enact rumination and reappraisal moderated the association between co-rumination and depressive symptoms. Path analyses revealed that the extent to which a co-ruminating individuals experienced depressive symptoms depended on the extent to which their friend reappraised: a positive, linear association between co-rumination and depressive symptoms emerged only for target participants whose friend was low in reappraisal use.