The Cessation of Rumination Through Self-Affirmation

@article{Koole1999TheCO,
  title={The Cessation of Rumination Through Self-Affirmation},
  author={Sander L. Koole and Karianne Smeets and Ad van Knippenberg and Ap Dijksterhuis},
  journal={Journal of Personality and Social Psychology},
  year={1999},
  volume={77},
  pages={111-125}
}
Drawing from self-affirmation theory (C. M. Steele, 1988) and L. L. Martin and A. Tesser's (1989, 1996) theory of ruminative thinking, the authors hypothesized that people stop ruminating about a frustrated goal when they can affirm an important aspect of the self. In 3 experiments participants were given failure feedback on an alleged IQ test. Failure feedback led to increased rumination (i.e., accessibility of goal-related thoughts) compared with no-failure conditions (Studies 1 and 2… 
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