An experimental study of hand washing in people with high and normative contamination fear

Abstract Compulsions are the hall mark of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) but there has been surprisingly little research on their phenomenology and persistence, much this work focused checking compulsions. The current study examined hand wash duration in participants (N = 235) with high or normative contamination fear who either “contaminated” hands not, under vs. low responsibility/harm conditions. Key findings were: 1) those only washed “excessively” when exposure/high responsibility conditions; 2) was no insidious effect memory confidence nor certainty it had done properly; 3) evidence behavioural repetition during wash; 4) contamination/high conditions goals were more likely to be impossible unverifiable (e.g., “get rid all germs”). We concluded that contextual factors influence washing moreso than fear, its consequences may less relevant for understanding excessive washing, treating OCD could merit reframing compulsion goals, exposing people uncertainty as whether not goal met by one performance compulsion.