Understanding experiences of mental contamination: Relationships with scrupulosity, thought action fusion, and perfectionism (2016)

Undergraduates: Siobhan Hsu, Ryan J. Jacoby

Faculty Advisor: Jon Abramowitz
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience

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Mental contamination (MC) refers to the experience of physical dirtiness without contact with a physical contaminant (Rachman, 2006). Despite its importance as a psychological construct, little is known about MC, its predictors, or how to treat it. Accordingly, the present study explores relationships between MC and hypothesized related constructs: perfectionism, scrupulosity, and thought-action fusion (TAF). Undergraduate students enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (n = 284) completed the self-report study measures through Qualtrics. Thirty-nine percent (n = 111) of participants reported having an experience of MC. In line with hypotheses, MC was significantly positively correlated with (a) maladaptive perfectionism (r = .37, p < .001) but not adaptive perfectionism (r = .07, p = .49), (b) scrupulosity (r = .24, p = .01) but not religiosity (r < .001, p = 1.0), and (c) likelihood TAF (r = .28, p = .003). Contrary to hypotheses, MC was not associated with moral TAF (r = .15, p = .13). When all variables were included in a simultaneous regression, they cumulatively accounted for 26% of the variance in MC symptoms, F(6, 104) = 5.96, p < .001. Likelihood TAF (¿¿ = .21, p = .03), Moral TAF (¿¿ = .28, p = .03), and maladaptive perfectionism (¿¿ = .37, p < .001) emerged as significant unique predictors. Clinical implications regarding the study and treatment of mental contamination as well as study limitations will also be discussed.