Rumination under the microscope: causal discovery and inference of the effect of rumination on depressive symptoms in an N-of-1 time series
Abstract
Depression is one of the most prevalent and disabling mental health conditions worldwide, with an estimated 5.7% of adults currently experiencing depression, around 332 million people globally. Rumination, a repetitive pattern of thinking that involves comparing one’s circumstances with how one would ideally like them to be without engaging in problem-solving, is the cognitive vulnerability most strongly associated with depression. Despite the evidence, there are no studies that have employed causal discovery and inference to investigate whether rumination has a causal effect on depressive mood using N-of-1 psychological time series data. To address this gap, this study conducted a secondary analysis of publicly available data on an American Latino Female diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) who reported on her feelings 4 times per day over 39 days. To conduct causal discovery, the Vector Autoregressive Linear Non-Gaussian Acyclic Model (VAR-LiNGAM) algorithm was used. To conduct causal inference, the g-formula, implemented via a Monte Carlo simulation, was used to estimate the Contemporaneous Effect, the 1-lag Structural Direct Effect and the 1-lag Total Effect of rumination on depressed mood. The findings indicated that high rumination was associated with a 15.6-point increase in depressed mood contemporaneously and a 1.7-point increase in depressed mood approximately 4 hours later. This evidence further substantiates the importance of interventions designed to reduce ruminative thinking and, consequently, improve depressive symptoms.
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BibTeX
@misc{santiago2026rumination,
title = {{Rumination under the microscope: causal discovery and inference of the effect of rumination on depressive symptoms in an N-of-1 time series}},
author = {Pedro Henrique Ribeiro Santiago and Alyssa Sawyer and Mark Kohler and Lisa Jamieson and Carly Sutherland},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/cepxv_v1},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/cepxv_v1/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Rumination under the microscope: causal discovery and inference of the effect of rumination on depressive symptoms in an N-of-1 time series
AU - Pedro Henrique Ribeiro Santiago
AU - Alyssa Sawyer
AU - Mark Kohler
AU - Lisa Jamieson
AU - Carly Sutherland
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/14
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/cepxv_v1
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/cepxv_v1/
AB - Depression is one of the most prevalent and disabling mental health conditions worldwide, with an estimated 5.7% of adults currently experiencing depression, around 332 million people globally. Rumination, a repetitive pattern of thinking that involves comparing one’s circumstances with how one would ideally like them to be without engaging in problem-solving, is the cognitive vulnerability most strongly associated with depression. Despite the evidence, there are no studies that have employed causal discovery and inference to investigate whether rumination has a causal effect on depressive mood using N-of-1 psychological time series data. To address this gap, this study conducted a secondary analysis of publicly available data on an American Latino Female diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) who reported on her feelings 4 times per day over 39 days. To conduct causal discovery, the Vector Autoregressive Linear Non-Gaussian Acyclic Model (VAR-LiNGAM) algorithm was used. To conduct causal inference, the g-formula, implemented via a Monte Carlo simulation, was used to estimate the Contemporaneous Effect, the 1-lag Structural Direct Effect and the 1-lag Total Effect of rumination on depressed mood. The findings indicated that high rumination was associated with a 15.6-point increase in depressed mood contemporaneously and a 1.7-point increase in depressed mood approximately 4 hours later. This evidence further substantiates the importance of interventions designed to reduce ruminative thinking and, consequently, improve depressive symptoms.
ER -