COMPULSIVE CHECKING AND ANXIETY IN A NONCLINICAL SAMPLE - DIFFERENCESIN COGNITION, BEHAVIOR, PERSONALITY, AND AFFECT

This study addresses the question of why some highly anxious individua ls exhibit excessive levels of compulsive checking behavior while othe r do not. To this end, nonclinical samples of compulsive checkers (n = 19), (nonchecking) anxious controls (n = 16), and (nonchecking) nonan xious controls (n = 12) were compared on a variety of cognitive, behav ioral, personality, and affective measures hypothesized to differentia te checkers from anxious controls. Results indicated that checkers exh ibited higher levels of perfectionism and worry, and demonstrated grea ter cognitive impairment on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. Furthermo re, performance and subjective experiences of performance appeared to be mediated by perfectionism and worry. Findings suggest that both per sonality and cognitive variables are important correlates of the form of anxiety-related symptomatology.