A Comparison of Checking-related Beliefs in Individuals with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Normal Controls

2002 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah M. Overton ◽  
Ross G. Menzies
Keyword(s):  
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Intolerance Of Uncertainty ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive ◽  
Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Gender And Age ◽  
Compulsive Checking ◽  
Perceived Danger ◽  
Thought Action Fusion ◽  
Normal Controls

AbstractThe potential roles of perceived danger, responsibility, thought-action fusion, confidence in memory, intolerance of uncertainty and need to control one's thoughts in mediating compulsive checking were examined. Belief ratings were obtained from 21 individuals with compulsive checking concerns and 21 nonclinical controls about the most prominent checking concern of each individual with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), with controls being yoked to individuals with OCD on the basis of gender and age. If control participants and individuals with OCD have some similar beliefs regarding, for example, locking their front door, then it follows that those beliefs are unlikely to be mediating or driving the disorder. Large and significant differences were found between sufferers of OCD and nonclinical controls on ratings of beliefs concerning the probability and severity of harm, intolerance of uncertainty and the need to control thoughts. However, no differences were found between individuals with OCD checking concerns and nonclinical controls in ratings of beliefs concerning perceived personal responsibility, thought-action fusion (TAF) and confidence in memory. The findings concerning personal responsibility are of particular interest and suggest that perceptions of harm or a negative outcome may be a necessary precursor to perceptions of responsibility and the decision to act.

Scrupulosity, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Ritual

2020 ◽  
pp. 103-156
Author(s):  
Robert N. McCauley ◽  
George Graham
Keyword(s):  
General Population ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Intolerance Of Uncertainty ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive ◽  
Moral Thought ◽  
Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Religious Rituals ◽  
Thought Action Fusion

Scrupulosity is a form of OCD involving hyperconscientiousness about moral and religious obligations. Scrupulous individuals accord their thoughts great moral and causal significance. They agonize about their inability to control problematic, intrusive, obsessive thoughts, especially about hazards. Thoughts about hazards are not dysfunctional. They arise in the general population at reproductively significant stages in life. The inability to control such thoughts, however, is dysfunctional. The scrupulous compulsively perform rituals and pursue reassurance, which are always undone by their intolerance of uncertainty and the impossibility of definitively establishing the absence of dangers empirically. The “Protestant order of salvation” is but one example of how religions can domesticate scrupulosity. Some religions’ doctrines about moral thought-action fusion and all religious rituals constitute representations and forms of behavior that temporarily evoke strikingly similar obsessions and compulsions in normal religious participants that deplete their cognitive resources, rendering them susceptible to the imposition of conventional interpretations.

scholarly journals Relation between executive functions and polymorphisms in COMT, MAO-A, HTTLPR, SLC1A1 and HT2A in a sample of children with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Enrique Avila Campos ◽  
María Cristina Pinto Dussan ◽  
Ángela María Polanco Barreto ◽  
Esneyder Manuel Guerrero ◽  
Rafael Antonio Vásquez Rojas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Executive Functions ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Wisconsin Card Sorting Test ◽  
Card Sorting ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive ◽  
Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Gender And Age ◽  
Mao A ◽  
Trail Making ◽  
Sorting Test

AbstractBackgroundObsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) has a complex etiology related to multiple neuropsychological factors. OCD is associated with several candidate genes but results are discordant. The objective was to explore the association between five polymorphisms related to neurotransmitters, the risk of an OCD diagnosis and the performance in four executive functions tests done with Colombian patients diagnosed with this condition.Methods63 patients and 65 controls matched by gender and age were genetically analyzed. For the study of the relation between cognitive function and phenotypes, a subsample of 33 patients and 31 controls was used. The Stroop test, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), Tower of London and Trail Making Test (TMT) for executive function assessment were applied and the SNPs analyzed were: COMT (rs4680), MAO-A (rs6323), HTTLPR (rs25531), HT2A (rs6315) and SLC1A1 (rs301434).ResultsDifferences in the conceptualization of the WCST test (p = 0.023) and Stroop interference score (p = 0.041) between cases and controls were obtained. After analyzing the relationship between genotypes and sub-scores of the tests, associations between the presence of MAO-A, SLAC1A1, HTTLPR and HT2A alleles and tests sub-scores were found.DiscussionThis characterization of children with OCD is a new field of work in Colombia and one of the first works performed in Latin America. The sample size and the number of polymorphisms analyzed in this population should be increased.

Cross-Cultural Approach to Anxiety Disorders

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 759-760
Author(s):  
William Eysenck ◽  
Michael W. Eysenck
Keyword(s):  
Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Social Phobia ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive ◽  
Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Cultural Approach ◽  
Cross Cultural Differences

In his theory of anxiety disorders, Eysenck (1997) argued that focus on one's own behavior is associated with social phobia, whereas focus on future-oriented threat cognitions is associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder. These foci occur in part because social phobics tend to be introverted and obsessive-compulsives either perceive themselves as having onerous responsibilities or actually do have them (e.g., women with infants). These assumptions have empirical support (Eysenck). We can use the theory to predict cross-cultural differences in anxiety disorders. Social phobia should be more common in introverted cultures. We correlated lifetime incidence of social phobia (data: Wittchen & Fehm, 2001) with extraversion (data: Steel & Ones, 2002) across several countries, obtaining the predicted negative correlation (-0.35). We will expand the database to establish definitively the strength of this association. We will also explore the prediction that people in individualistic countries (emphasizing personal responsibility) have a higher incidence of obsessive-compulsive disorder than those in collectivistic countries, a prediction receiving preliminary support (e.g., Essau, Sakano, Ishikawa, & Sasagawa, 2004).

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