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The Role of Disgust and Threat in Contamination-Related Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2021

Leanne Mulheron  and
Mairwen K. Jones Open the ORCID record for Mairwen K. Jones [Opens in a new window]
Leanne Mulheron
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Mairwen K. Jones*
Affiliation:
Sydney School of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
*
*Corresponding author: Mairwen K. Jones, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Sydney School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Theoretical models suggest that the emotion disgust or threat overestimates are important in the aetiology and maintenance of contamination-based obsessive–compulsive disorder. In the current study, both threat and disgust were manipulated and 115 non-clinical participants (mean age 20.46 years, 94 females) were randomly allocated to one of four conditions: high-disgust/low-threat (n = 29), high-disgust/high-threat (n = 29), low-disgust/low-threat (n = 27), and low-disgust/high-threat (n = 30). Participants completed a hierarchical Behavioural Avoidance Task (BAT). Those in the high-threat and high-disgust conditions completed less BAT steps and showed more latency to begin each step than those in the low-threat and low-disgust conditions. A significant interaction effect was observed for the high-disgust/high-threat condition as significantly more task avoidance was found. However, handwashing duration was not significantly different between the high and low-disgust conditions or the high and low-threat conditions. The overall low mean washing duration of 30 s possibly due to the testing conditions and/or the ethnic heterogeneity of the sample may account for these results. There were also no significant differences in the level of anxiety for participants in the high-threat compared with the low-threat conditions. It is possible that anxiety remained relatively low across conditions as a result of the graduated BAT. Future research and theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.

Keywords

OCDanxietydisgustthreat
Type
Standard Paper
Information
Behaviour Change , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , April 2021 , pp. 40 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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