Mental Rumination: How Unwanted and Recurrent Thoughts Can Perturbate the Purchasing Behavior

Martin and Tesser (1989) proposed a “rumination theory” to describe an unintentional and recurrent cognitive process where the individuals dwell on recurrent negative thoughts despite the absence of immediate environmental cueing. Their motivational approach presents rumination as a counterproductive thinking process triggered by the detection of a perturbation in one’s goal attainment process. This theory has received substantial attention in clinical psychology, but has not been documented in the literature on consumer behavior. Therefore, this paper aims first at synthesizing the current body of research on rumination and second at suggesting directions for research in marketing.