Associations between appraisals of distressing intrusions and thought control strategies (2012)

Undergraduate: Shannon Blakey

Faculty Advisor: Jonathan Abramowitz
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience

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Cognitive-behavioral models of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) posit that the appearance and persistence of normal mental intrusions can be distressing and contribute to the development of clinical obsessions, especially when the thinker holds dysfunctional appraisals and attempts to control the intrusions with certain thought control strategies. Previous work has examined patterns between cognitive appraisals and thought control strategy use, but these studies are limited in that they used nomothetic measures that assessed only a few appraisals or thought control strategies. In the present study, we used a new, extensive measure (the IITIS; Clark, 2007) to ideographically assess a sample (n = 39) of unselected students’ single most distressing intrusive thought and test for predicted appraisal-thought control strategy pathways. Results indicate that such relationships do exist; specifically, importance of thought appraisals significantly predicted the use of self-reasoning control strategies, and intolerance of uncertainty appraisals were associated with the use of reassurance-seeking. These findings support a growing body of research that OCD is, in fact, a dimensional disorder. Study limitations and future directions are discussed.