Impact of Experienced Disgust on Information-Processing Biases in Contamination-Based OCD: An Analogue Study

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-7-2009

Publication Title

International Journal of Cognitive Therapy

Volume

2

Issue

1

First page number:

37

Last page number:

52

Abstract

The present study examined the influence of experienced disgust on information-processing biases, as assessed by a lexical decision task, among participants high (HCF; n = 33) and low (LCF; n = 21) in contamination-based OCD. Consistent with prior work, participants were significantly slower at responding to disgust words compared to fear, happy, and neutral words, while the other word types did not significantly differ from each other. In a neutral mood induction condition, HCF individuals were significantly slower, compared to LCF individuals, in responding to all emotional words, but not neutral words. However, there were no differences between LCF and HCF individuals in reaction times to any word contents in the disgust mood induction condition. Subsequent analyses also revealed that for females, HCF individuals were significantly slower, compared to LCF individuals, in responding to emotional words, but not to neutral words. However, for males, there were no significant differences between the LCF and HCF individuals in reaction times to any word type. Implications and suggestions for continued research examining information-processing biases as a possible mechanism by which disgust may contribute to contamination-based OCD are outlined.

Keywords

Experienced disgust; Information-processing biases; Lexical decision task; Contamination-based ocd; HCF; LCF

Disciplines

Cognition and Perception | Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Language

English

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