Understanding Risk and Reward in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a common mental illness characterised by recurrent distressing mental obsessions and behavioural compulsions. For decades OCD has been viewed as an archetypical compulsive disorder, i.e. compulsive rituals are performed in order to alleviate or avoid feelings of anxiety and stress. However, recent clinical research findings suggested that OCD may be better conceptualised as a ‘behavioural addiction’, i.e. compulsive rituals are impulsive in nature, and motivated by a desire for positive states. These two frameworks have very different treatment implications, and as the behavioural addiction model of OCD is a radical departure from the traditional anxious-avoidant model its validity is hotly debated within medical and psychological literature. This honours project will contribute to the debate by investigating the extent to which impulsivity and risky decision making are features of OCD. The student will learn to administer a battery of gold-standard measures of cognitive and behavioural impulsivity, compulsivity and risky decision making and administer these with people experiencing OCD and others with no experience of mental illness.