Cognitions or Metacognitions?: The Role of Automatic Thoughts and Metacognitive Beliefs about Rumination in Explaining Depressive Symptoms

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the unique contributions of negative automatic thoughts and metacognitive beliefs about rumination in predicting depressive symptoms. Additionally, participants' depression scores were compared with respect to gender, socioeconomic variables of income and education levels. A total of 408 adults (65.4% females) participated in this cross-sectional study. It was found that 26.7% of the participants showed high depressive symptoms. Depression scores of women were found to be significantly higher than men. Besides, depressive symptoms decreased as education and income levels increased. Two separate regression analyses revealed that negative metacognitions about rumination and automatic thoughts are significant predictors of depressive symptoms. In comparison, automatic thoughts explain depression at a higher level than metacognitive beliefs. However, the present study showed that the unique contribution of negative metacognitions about rumination to depression was higher than automatic thoughts.