Background: According the past research, the direction and power of the relationship between
suicide ideation and rumination are not clear. So this research assumed that other factors may play a role.
Williams proposed the hypothesis of autobiographical memory Capture and Rumination mechanism
(CaR), one of the idea is, overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM)were used more frequently by the
individuals who had more rumination reaction. But what kind of influence between the autobiographical
memory and rumination? Is autobiographical memory have an effect indirectly? Not only the theory
but also the empirical research is not clear. Aim: To explore the moderating function in the relationship
of suicide ideation and rumination. Participant: 633 undergraduates from freshman to senior college
students in the three universities entered this research project, 278 males ,355 females,17-24 yrs. Research
tools: Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT, Zhang Hongyu, 2012), SSI (Beck Scale for suicidal ideation;
Beck, etc, 1979; Zhang Jie, Song Zhenshao, 2004), the Chinese version of RRS (Rumination Response
Scale) (Zhang hongyu, 2010). Results: Using SPSS15.0 software package, hierarchical regression analysis
was chosen. The results showed that: (1) the autobiographical memory aroused by positive words had
a significant moderating effect of p<0.001 (n=633) between suicide ideation and rumination. (2) The
interaction of autobiographical memory and suicide ideation was negative, it seemed that the influence
was weakened due to the effect of autobiographical memory. (3) No significant effect was found after
investigating the positive or negative characteristics of the recall events, but it was found that the positive
and negative characteristics of the events independently predicted the response of rumination, the
negative events predicted rumination significantly. Conclusion: The autobiographical memory aroused
by positive words was indeed as a moderator between suicidal ideation and rumination, and the level of
overgenerality in autobiographical memory decreased the power of relationship between suicidal ideation
and rumination . It seemed inconsistent with Williams. Rumination was more strongly influenced by
the events in participants memories . However, which is more likely have the effects on rumination, the
overgeneral memory or the specific memory, the further study will be continued in the future.