Reading focus
Syllabus: Why Do Obsessions and Compulsions Persist?
Compare the hypothesis with the manipulation and the full pattern of results.
Why you’re reading it. Evaluate one experimental test without treating every prediction as confirmed.
A question to consider. Which elements would you hold constant to test responsibility independently of threat and experimenter authority?
Why this reading
A theory becomes more informative when an experiment can fail to support parts of it. Parrish and Radomsky manipulate responsibility and reassurance, offering a concrete opportunity to separate a prediction, an intervention, and an outcome.
Before you read
A manipulation changes something experimentally; a manipulation check asks whether participants experienced the intended difference. An urge to check, checking behavior, memory accuracy, and confidence are distinct measures.
Read for
- Compare every difference between the responsibility conditions, including perceived consequences and the experimenter’s presentation.
- Inspect the interaction tests before interpreting changes within individual groups. Which reassurance predictions were unsupported?
Consider afterwards
- How could you separate responsibility from perceived threat while keeping the task and its feedback comparable?
Editorial context
The analyses retained 100 of 124 students after excluding incomplete data. The clearest responsibility interaction concerned checking urges; interactions for reassurance urges and confidence were only trends. Reassurance was unsolicited and standardized, limiting generalization to reassurance seeking. The findings do not establish a universal harmful effect of reassurance or explain everyday compulsions in a clinical sample.