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Positive Thoughts versus States of Mind Ratio as a Stress Moderator: Findings Across Four Studies

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Abstract

Using two measures of positive automaticthoughts (PATs) and other archival data from fourprevious studies, the author compared the ability ofPATs and States of Mind (SOM) ratio to moderate therelationship between negative events and dysphoria bothcross sectionally and longitudinally. In three of fourcross-sectional analyses but in none of threelongitudinal analyses, PATs moderated the negativeevent-dysphoria relationship. For more frequent PATs, negativeevents were less related to dysphoria. In one of fourcross-sectional analyses and one of three longitudinalanalyses, SOM ratio moderated the negativeevent-dysphoria relationship such that, for higher SOM ratio,negative events were less predictive of dysphoria.Results were similar whether PATs were measured with theAutomatic Thoughts Questionnaire-Positive or the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire-Revised instudies 1-3 but differed across these instruments insome analyses in study 4. It is argued that, ascognitive products, state cognitions and SOM ratio maybe unlikely to moderate stress effectsconsistently in longitudinal studies. It is recommendedthat, in studies of dysphoria and depression,researchers investigate (1) cognitions X cognitivestructure interactions and (2) domain-specific belief X life eventinteractions.

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  1. Owen Richard Lightsey
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Lightsey, O.R. Positive Thoughts versus States of Mind Ratio as a Stress Moderator: Findings Across Four Studies. Cognitive Therapy and Research 23, 469–482 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018716303842

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