Repetitive negative thinking during pregnancy: The role of biased information seeking and negative prenatal expectations

Repetitive Negative Thinking (RNT) during pregnancy is a key risk factor for psychopathology in the perinatal period. However, the cognitive mechanisms underlying prenatal RNT remain poorly understood. Recent research has suggested that a tendency to volitionally seek negative rather than positive information (i.e., biased information seeking) may contribute to the formation of more negative prenatal expectations, which in turn predict elevated prenatal RNT. The current study aimed (i) to replicate the findings of a previous study that demonstrated associations between expectations about parenthood, biased information seeking about parenthood-related information, and RNT, and (ii) examine the generality of the observed effects beyond parenthood by investigating whether biased information seeking and negative expectations show similar associations with prenatal RNT across the other two main domains of prenatal RNT, i.e., pregnancy and childbirth. A total of 126 first-time expecting mothers were recruited online and completed a task that assessed biased information seeking, along with questionnaires measuring prenatal RNT and expectations. Replicating previous findings, biased information seeking predicted stronger negative expectations, which in turn predicted higher prenatal RNT. These effects were consistent across the domains of pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood, supporting the generality of the findings across these domains. These findings have important implications for expectation-focused interventions and cognitive bias modification procedures aimed at reducing prenatal RNT.