Assessment of inflated responsibility as a risk factor for obsessive-compulsive symptoms: An analogue test

Researchers have attributed an important role to inflated responsibility in the development of clinical obsessions and compulsions. Two experiments were conducted using non-clinical participants. The first examined whether higher scores on a measure of responsibility are associated with greater Obsessive-Compulsive (OC) symptoms. The second study examined whether participants with inflated responsibility engage in more checking behaviours and demonstrate greater attentional bias to responsibility stimuli following exposure to an experimental manipulation of responsibility. The results indicated that a sense of inflated responsibility, in conjunction with an overestimation of threat, was significantly predictive of OC symptoms scores. The results also indicated that while participants with high responsibility took longer to complete the experimental task and engaged in more checking behaviours, they did not exhibit an attentional bias towards responsibility stimuli. The implications of these results are discussed.