Obsessive-compulsive symptoms, white noise and intrusions of self-relevantnegative thoughts in a thought suppression paradigm

Forty female students participated in an experiment where they were asked t o suppress a negative self-relevant thought. Half the group suppressed in a loud white noise condition (90 decibels) whereas the other half suppressed in a noise condition of much lower intensity (50 decibels). The subjects w ere divided up into two groups on the basis of their scores on the Obsessiv e Compulsive Thoughts Checklist (Bouvard, Cottraux, Mollard, Arthus, Lachan ce, Guerin, Sauteraud & Yao, 1997). It was predicted that 1) Subjects scori ng high on obsessive-compulsive symptoms would show more intrusive thoughts 2) Loud noise would increase intrusive thoughts, especially for subjects s coring high on obsessive-compulsive symptoms. As expected subjects who scor ed high on obsessive-compulsive symptoms showed more intrusive thoughts, bu t contrary to expectations loud noise did not increase intrusive thoughts. In fact obsessive-compulsive symptoms were related to more intrusions in th e condition of noise of less intensity but not in the condition of loud noi se. Implications are discussed.