In the following passage some of the words have been deleted. Read the passage carefully and select the correct answer for the given blank out of the four alternatives.

After a rejection, we tend to beat ourselves up over the things that might have (1)__________ us to be rejected - and might even end up dwelling on these negative (2) _________, a process called rumination. This habit, however inevitably causes us to (3)__________ worse. " The first thing a lot of people do when they get rejected is to be unkind to (4)_______ , and they start coming up with all kinds of ideas about what's (5)__________ with them," Gottlieb notes.