compulsions, not just checkers and so the relationship between responsibility and different subtypes of OCD is not clear from this study. The visuo-spatial memory task (used by Mancini et al., 2004) had high ecological validity as the experimenters gave no reassurance or feedback to participants and allowed participants to go back to check if desired. As such, the experiment was like most real life situations. The authors concluded that expectation of failure is an underestimation of coping abilities and so personal responsibility along with a perceived lack of coping abilities increases OCD symptoms more than personal responsibility alone. This supports Ladouceur et al.’s (1997) findings and fits with Salkovskis’ theory (1985, 1989) that excessive responsibility produces negative automatic thoughts, and discomfort arises, as perceived lack of coping would intensify and add to the negative automatic thoughts and feeling of discomfort. However, Mancini et al. did not include an expectation of failure alone condition (without perceived responsibility), and so this conclusion is limited as it is unclear what effect perceived lack of coping without excessive responsibility would have had on participants’ behaviour. The experimental vignette method of manipulation (used by Parrish & Radomsky, 2011) manipulated responsibility successfully. However, higher responsibility did not lead to higher to seek reassurance. This may be because if a person is more responsible they may prioritise checking than seeking reassurance as personally checking may be seen as more reliable evidence than relying on someone else. Alternatively, people may only seek reassurance if checking fails or is impossible, but this was not the case in the study. It is also possible that the responsibility manipulation was not as effective as the threat or ambiguity of feedback manipulations thus limiting statistical power to detect an effect. Indeed there was a medium-large effect size of the manipulation of responsibility (r=0.47) compared to larger effect sizes of the manipulation of threat (r=0.57) and manipulation of ambiguity of feedback
compulsions, not just checkers and so the relationship between responsibility and different subtypes of OCD is not clear from this study. The visuo-spatial memory task (used by Mancini et al., 2004) had high ecological validity as the experimenters gave no reassurance or feedback to participants and allowed participants to go back to check if desired. As such, the experiment was like most real life situations. The authors concluded that expectation of failure is an underestimation of coping abilities and so personal responsibility along with a perceived lack of coping abilities increases OCD symptoms more than personal responsibility alone. This supports Ladouceur et al.’s (1997) findings and fits with Salkovskis’ theory (1985, 1989) that excessive responsibility produces negative automatic thoughts, and discomfort arises, as perceived lack of coping would intensify and add to the negative automatic thoughts and feeling of discomfort. However, Mancini et al. did not include an expectation of failure alone condition (without perceived responsibility), and so this conclusion is limited as it is unclear what effect perceived lack of coping without excessive responsibility would have had on participants’ behaviour. The experimental vignette method of manipulation (used by Parrish & Radomsky, 2011) manipulated responsibility successfully. However, higher responsibility did not lead to higher to seek reassurance. This may be because if a person is more responsible they may prioritise checking than seeking reassurance as personally checking may be seen as more reliable evidence than relying on someone else. Alternatively, people may only seek reassurance if checking fails or is impossible, but this was not the case in the study. It is also possible that the responsibility manipulation was not as effective as the threat or ambiguity of feedback manipulations thus limiting statistical power to detect an effect. Indeed there was a medium-large effect size of the manipulation of responsibility (r=0.47) compared to larger effect sizes of the manipulation of threat (r=0.57) and manipulation of ambiguity of feedback
Jenni%20Shaw%20Ethesis.docx