Silencing the Sound of Positivity: The role and treatment of dampening of positive feelings in the context of depression

People do not just worry about their negative feelings. Even when people experience positive feelings, some people start to worry about it. And precisely because of this brooding, they start to bring down or dampen those positive feelings (“dampening”). This of course has a negative impact on their mood. This dampening style of thinking makes people vulnerable to, for example depression.

The project focuses on the further investigation of the role dampening plays in the onset and maintenance of depressive symptoms and on the mechanisms that maintain dampening. The project focuses on both basic and clinically-applied research, including the investigation of the effects of a mindfulness-based intervention on dampening and positive affect regulation.