LOOMING VULNERABILITY TO SPREADING CONTAMINATION IN SUBCLINICAL OCD

The present study examined the hypothesis, stimulated by the looming v ulnerability model of anxiety (Riskind, in press, Behaviour Research a nd Therapy), that subclinical OCD is associated with a subjective sens e of looming vulnerability. One-hundred and four undergraduates rated vignettes of common, everday situations involving exposure to possible dirt, germs, or contamination. Participants in a subclinical obsessio nal group had a far higher sense of looming vulnerability to spreading contamination than did those in a control group. Results verified tha t the subjective sense of looming vulnerability still had separate, di stinct and significant contributions to fear-of-contamination symptoms , with the effects of cognitive appraisals of other aspects of threat (such as probability of harm, or lack of control) removed. In contrast , these other cognitive appraisals had no significant associations wit h symptoms that proved to be independent of the subjective sense of lo oming vulnerability. A path analysis further explored the dependency o f these other cognitive appraisals on looming vulnerability. This anal ysis found that part of the effects of the subjective sense of looming Vulnerability on fears may be indirect and mediated via correlated ef fects of other cognitive appraisals. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.