“Sticky” thinking disrupts decision making for individuals with a tendency toward worry and depression

Yang, H., & van Vugt, M. (2025). “Sticky” thinking disrupts decision making for individuals with a tendency toward worry and depression. Emotion, 25(4), 997-1010. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001449

Rationale

Sticky thinking involves repetitive negative thoughts difficult to disengage from, closely linked to rumination – a hallmark of depression.

While previous research highlights impaired decision-making in depression, focusing on reward sensitivity or emotional bias, less attention has been given to spontaneous thought disruptions.

Current methods often rely on subjective reports susceptible to biases.

This study objectively quantifies the impact of sticky thoughts using behavioral measures and EEG, enhancing our understanding of cognitive impairments in depression.

Method

Researchers used a writing task followed by the SART, a decision-making task with thought probes, alongside EEG recordings to assess how sticky thinking impacts decision-making in people vulnerable to depression and worry.

Sample

40 adults split into two groups:

1. More vulnerable (21 participants): higher depression and rumination scores.
2. Less vulnerable (19 participants): lower scores.

Gender imbalance (more women in the vulnerable group).

Variables

Independent Variables:

• Group classification (more vulnerable vs. less vulnerable).
• Sticky thinking (presence vs. absence).

Dependent Variables:

• Decision-making accuracy.
• Speed of evidence accumulation (measured by drift rate).
• Alpha-band power from EEG recordings.
• Nondecision times (perceptual and motor delays).

Procedure

The study design involved two main activities designed to measure how sticky thinking affects decision-making:

• Writing Task: Participants first wrote about a personal negative event to provoke sticky, repetitive thoughts.
• Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART): Participants completed a task designed to assess their ability to make decisions while periodically reporting their current thought patterns.

Step-by-Step:

1. Participants wrote for 10 minutes about something negative that bothered them personally.
2. After the writing task, participants rated how much the negative event affected them emotionally.
3. Participants performed the SART, a computerized test where they had to quickly respond to certain stimuli and withhold responses to others.
4. During the SART, occasional prompts asked participants to describe their current thoughts and how hard it was to move on from them.
5. EEG sensors recorded brain activity throughout the SART, particularly looking at alpha-wave patterns associated with mind-wandering or “sticky” thoughts

Measures

• Perseverative Thinking Questionnaire (PTQ): Assesses repetitive negative thinking.
• Rumination Response Scale (RRS): Measures depressive rumination.
• Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D): Evaluates depressive symptoms severity.
• SART: Behavioral task measuring decision-making and thought stickiness.

Statistical Measures

• Drift-diffusion modeling to assess decision speed and accuracy.
• EEG alpha-band power analysis.
• Linear mixed-effects models and paired t-tests.

Results

• Participants with higher vulnerability to depression and worry had lower accuracy on decision-making tasks.
• Sticky thinking significantly slowed down the speed of evidence accumulation necessary for decision making.
• Increased alpha-band power, linked to sticky thoughts, further reduced decision-making effectiveness, especially in vulnerable individuals.
• Sticky thinking led to longer nondecision times (perceptual and motor delays), notably among more vulnerable participants.
• Alpha-band power specifically modulated differences in decision-making speed between more and less vulnerable groups.

Insight

This study clearly demonstrates that sticky thinking significantly disrupts decision-making by hindering the brain’s ability to quickly gather and process information required to make decisions.

Importantly, it identifies specific brain activity (alpha-band power) linked to these disruptive thoughts, offering a reliable, objective measure beyond traditional self-report methods.

This makes the research particularly informative because it bridges subjective experiences and measurable neurological changes.

The findings deepen our understanding of how cognitive processes, such as attention and decision-making, become compromised in individuals prone to worry and depression.

Future research could explore methods to reduce sticky thinking through mindfulness training or cognitive-behavioral interventions, examining if these techniques improve real-world decision-making abilities.

Further investigation could also assess whether similar cognitive disruptions occur in other mental health conditions or during typical life stressors, broadening the application and relevance of these findings.

Clinical Implications

These findings can significantly impact clinical practice by encouraging practitioners to specifically target sticky thinking when treating individuals with depression and anxiety.

Practitioners could use mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and other cognitive-behavioral techniques aimed at improving cognitive flexibility and attention control to manage sticky thoughts.

For policymakers, these results suggest investing in training programs for mental health professionals to better recognize and address cognitive disruptions. Implementing structured mindfulness and cognitive flexibility programs in healthcare services could enhance patient outcomes.

However, practical challenges include accurately identifying and measuring sticky thoughts during therapy, and integrating specialized training into existing healthcare structures.

Ensuring consistent, standardized approaches and practitioner training may require considerable resources and organizational support.

Strengths

• Objective measurement using EEG and DDM provides robust data.
• Behavioral tasks minimize biases inherent in self-reports.
• Clear differentiation between vulnerable and less vulnerable groups enhances result clarity.

Limitations

• Gender imbalance between groups may influence outcomes.
• Reliance on subjective self-report for identifying sticky thoughts.
• Laboratory-based tasks may not reflect real-life decision-making fully.

Socratic Questions

• How might gender differences impact the generalizability of these findings?
• Can you think of alternative methods for objectively measuring sticky thoughts in everyday life?
• How might sticky thinking interact with other cognitive processes, such as memory or executive functioning?
• What strategies could clinicians implement to specifically address sticky thinking in depression?
• How could these findings apply to non-depressed individuals experiencing occasional worry or rumination?