Characteristics Of Habitualized Behavioral Systems In Highly Obsessive Individuals

Obsessive-compulsive disorder(OCD)is a common clinical mental disorder,which is characterized by obsessions and/or compulsions.Obsessions and compulsions usually consume a lot of time and cause damage to social function.In recent years,some mental health surveys of students have found that OCD is becoming one of the most significant psychological problems for middle school students and even college students.Although most individuals have mild obsessive-compulsive symptoms,some timely intervention is necessary to avoid the development of symptoms.This also requires us to further explore the psychological mechanism of OCD individuals,so as to provide a theoretical basis for scientific and effective intervention.The habit-driven model of OCD holds that compulsions stem from over-dependence on the habitual system,while obsessions are only the rationalization of compulsions that is difficult to explain.Previous studies have confirmed that there is an imbalance between goal-oriented behavior system and habitual behavior system in patients with OCD.However,there are still some problems to be explored:(1)at present,the research OCD using the outcome devaluation paradigm is basically carried out under the habitual behavior of striving for reward(such as getting points).There is little research on the habitual behavior of avoiding punishment.(2)the stimuli used in the existing outcome devaluation paradigm do not have obvious emotional valence,so it is impossible to explain whether different emotional stimuli can affect the habitual behavior of patients with OCD;(3)there is also a lack of research on the effect of the intensity of punishment on the formation and performance of individual habitual behavior;(4)there is still a lack of electrophysiological research on habitual behavior of OCD.This study takes individuals with high and low obsessive-compulsive tendencies as subjects to investigate the characteristics of their habitual behavior system,and to explore the factors that affect the habitual behavior of individuals with high obsessive-compulsive tendencies from two aspects:the emotional valence of stimuli and the intensity of negative feedback.In study 1,based on the paradigm of outcome devaluation,punishment results were used instead of reward results to investigate the effects of facial stimuli with different facial expressions on the habitual behavior of individuals with high and low obsessive-compulsive tendencies.The group is the between-subject variable,which is divided into high obsessive-compulsive tendency group and low obsessive-compulsive tendency group.the stimuli type is the within-subject variable,which is divided into three levels:happy face,fear face and neutral face.The experiment is divided into learning stage and testing stage.The results showed that:(1)in the learning stage,individuals with high obsessive-compulsive tendencies were slower to learn the connection between stimulus and responses;(2)individuals with high obsessive-compulsive tendencies were less sensitive to happy faces than fearful faces and neutral faces;(3)individuals with high obsessive-compulsive tendencies were more dependent on the habitual response system.In the study 2,the effects of high and low punishment intensity on the habitual behavior of the two groups were investigated,and the ERP technology with high time resolution was added as a research method.Among them,the group is the between-subject variable,which is divided into two groups:high obsessive-compulsive tendency group and low obsessive-compulsive tendency group.The intensity of punishment is an within-subject variable,which is divided into two levels:-1 score and-5 score.The EEG data of the subjects were recorded at the same time in the experiment.The results showed that:(1)subjects with high intensity of punishment learned faster about the connection between stimulus and responses;(2)subjects had worse mastery of the connection between stimulus and high punishment result;(3)individuals with high obsessive-compulsive tendency had lower P3amplitude after the presence of stimulus with high punishment;(4)individuals with high obsessive-compulsive tendency had obvious P_E waves after both correct and wrong responses.Combining the results of study 1 and study 2,the conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)individuals with high obsessive-compulsive tendencies are more dependent on habitual responses than individuals with low obsessive-compulsive tendencies;(2)facial expression stimulation slows down the learning rate of stimulus-response connection of individuals with high obsessive-compulsive tendencies.Fear expression stimulation did not induce more habitual behavioral responses of individuals with high obsessive-compulsive tendency.(3)under the condition of high punishment,individuals with high obsessive-compulsive tendency used less cognitive resources and performed more habitual behavior.(4)individuals with high obsessive-compulsive tendency lack confidence in their own behaviour.