DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF A MEASURE OF SELF-CRITICAL RUMINATION

Shame and self-criticism are closely related constructs that have strong associations with many forms of psychopathology as well as general psychological distress. Rumination is a maladaptive form of repetitive thinking that is associated with a number of psychological disorders. Although measures of many different types of rumination (e.g. depressive rumination, angry rumination) have been developed, none assess self-critical rumination. The purpose of the present study, therefore, was to develop a measure of self-critical rumination. An initial pool of items for the Self-Critical Rumination Scale (SCRS) was developed by adapting existing rumination measures and through a writing task administered to both student and clinical samples. Following an evaluation of content validity, a total of 24 items remained in the item pool. These items were then administered to a large sample of undergraduates along with measures of related constructs. Psychometric properties of the Self-Critical Rumination Scale (SCRS) were examined including internal consistency, factor structure, and convergent and discriminant relationships with related constructs. Regression analyses were then performed in which scores on the SCRS were used to predict several different indicators of psychological distress. The SCRS significantly predicted symptoms of borderline personality disorder and overall general distress