Reflective versus brooding rumination : impact on tour guides’ emotion, flexibility, and resilience

Abstract

This study examines how two cognitive responses to stress—reflective and brooding rumination—affect tour guides’ psychological flexibility and career resilience, defined as the ability to adapt positively to career challenges and maintain professional growth. Across four scenario-based experiments (N = 962), we investigate the distinct impacts of these rumination styles under diverse stress contexts. Experiments 1 and 2 reveal that reflective rumination promotes emotion regulation and reduces emotional exhaustion, thereby enhancing psychological flexibility and resilience, while brooding rumination worsens exhaustion and undermines resilience. Experiments 3 and 4 highlight that in-group support strengthens the positive effects of reflective rumination, whereas in-group disregard amplifies brooding rumination’s detrimental impacts. Theoretical implications emphasize the role of emotion regulation as a mediating mechanism linking adaptive rumination to resilience, while, practically, findings suggest that fostering reflective thinking and supportive team dynamics could improve tour guides’ capacity to manage stress and sustain their career well-being.