Safety Behavior Increases Obsession-Related Cognitions About the Severity of Threat

Abstract This study investigated whether checking behavior, the most common safety behavior in obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), contributes to the development of OCD symptoms. Ninety healthy undergraduates spent a week between a pre- and posttest either actively engaging in clinically representa...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Behavior therapy 2015-07, Vol.46 (4), p.521-531
Main Authors: van Uijen, Sophie L, Toffolo, Marieke B.J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anxiety
Behavior modification
checking
Cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Emotional disorders
Female
Humans
Individuality
Male
Obsessive Behavior - psychology
Obsessive compulsive disorder
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - classification
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - diagnosis
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - psychology
Personality Inventory
Psychiatry
Safety
safety behavior
threat overestimation
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Abstract This study investigated whether checking behavior, the most common safety behavior in obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), contributes to the development of OCD symptoms. Ninety healthy undergraduates spent a week between a pre- and posttest either actively engaging in clinically representative checking behavior on a daily basis (experimental group, n = 30), monitoring their normal checking behavior (monitor group, n = 30), or received no instructions on checking behavior (control group, n = 30). Cognitions about the severity of threat increased from pre- to posttest in the experimental group, but not in the monitor and control groups. Cognitions about the importance of checking decreased in the monitor group. The results indicate that checking behavior contributes directly to the exacerbation of OCD symptoms. Together with the findings of previous studies, this suggests that safety behavior may be involved in the development of anxiety disorders and OCD. Potential mechanisms of how engaging in safety behavior increases threat perception are discussed.
ISSN:0005-7894
1878-1888
DOI:10.1016/j.beth.2015.04.001