Responsibility and hand washing behaviour

Cognitive Motivations for the Initiation of Ritualistic Hand Washing in Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder

“…With an average of 14 consecutive actions per wash, washers reported performing twice as many steps as controls and repeating about 20% of the individual actions, resulting in a total average number of 23 consecutive actions per hand wash. These results are in line with findings showing that the length of a wash was accounted for by the repetition of separable actions, rather than their prolongation or a repetition of the complete wash (Taylor & Purdon, 2016). Although we did not differentiate between relevant and irrelevant actions in our study, the greater number of overall steps in washers is consistent with the idea that washers added actions that were not necessary for a hand wash, such as counting or cleaning the tap (Zor et al, 2009).…”

“…Future studies might also explicitly address additional aspects of compulsive washing such as disgust (Deacon & Olatunji, 2007), responsibility (Taylor & Purdon, 2016), or imagery (Lipton, Brewin, Linke, & Halperin, 2010).…”

“…The average duration of a hand wash was 106.33 s in a laboratory study for individuals with THE START OF COMPULSIVE HAND WASHING 7 hand-washing compulsions, compared to 57.24 s for healthy controls (Wahl et al, 2008), and 131.69 s in a laboratory study for individuals high in contamination fears, under conditions of high responsibility, compared to 76.40 s for individuals low in contamination fears (Taylor & Purdon, 2016). The length of the wash seems to be the result of repetitions of specific steps of the wash, rather than a repetition of the entire wash or prolongation of individual actions (Taylor & Purdon, 2016). Results from a study with individuals diagnosed with various OCD problems have also indicated that-apart from repetition-compulsive behavior is characterized by the insertion of additional actions that are unnecessary for the completion of the task (Zor et al, 2009).…”

“…However, neither the total number of steps of a compulsive wash nor the number of steps that are repeated nor the total number of repetitions has been investigated in individuals diagnosed with OCD and hand-washing compulsions. Behavior repetitions might have a detrimental feedback effect on cognitive variables, such as reduced sensory confidence (Taylor & Purdon, 2016). The present study assessed these frequencies and their associations with the goals of the wash.…”

“…Several studies have addressed various factors involved in the maintenance and termination of compulsive hand washing in recent years (Bucarelli & Purdon, 2015;Cougle, Goetz, Fitch, & Hawkins, 2011;Hinds, Woody, Van Ameringen, Schmidt, & Szechtman, 2012;Taylor & Purdon, 2016;Wahl, Salkovskis, & Cotter, 2008). Surprisingly, however, little is known about the factors involved in the initiation of a compulsive hand wash.…”