Grant: Operating Grant

Repeated reassurance seeking (asking for information over and over again) is a hallmark feature of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) that has a significant impact upon those struggling with the problem as well as upon their friends, family members and loved ones. Although reassurance seeking has been studied in the context of low self-esteem and depression (e.g., "Do you really love me?"), it has not been investigated in the context of OCD (e.g., "Do you really think that my hands are clean?"). We propose to conduct a series of interconnected studies that will establish a measure of reassurance seeking in OCD and that will experimentally manipulate a variety of factors which are proposed to contribute to repeated reassurance seeking (e.g., perceived threat and ambiguity of feedback) in clinical and nonclinical participants. Results from these investigations will be communicated to scientific, community and clinical populations and we expect that our findings will help to refine and improve psychological treatments for this complicated type of OCD.