ORDERING AND ARRANGING BEHAVIORS IN OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER: A REPLICATION AND EXTENSION

ORDERING AND ARRANGING BEHAVIORS IN OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER: A REPLICATION AND EXTENSION Sarah R. Lee, M.A. Department of Psychology Northern Illinois University, 2018 Kevin D. Wu, Director In the existing Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) research literature, some of its “symptom dimensions” have been studied more extensively than others. Symmetry and ordering concerns, for example, have been the subject of far less research than washing or checking symptoms. In one of the few extant studies of these concerns, researchers previously found that participants with elevated ordering concerns reported higher anxiety in response to a stressful task when assigned to a disorganized office space, as opposed to an organized one. The current study was intended as a replication of this prior study in a larger sample. One hundred twenty-six undergraduate students from Northern Illinois University were recruited for this study and sorted into “high” and “low” ordering groups based on self-report scores of ordering concerns. Participants were randomized to work in either an organized or disorganized office space, and post-test anxiety ratings were gathered as the major dependent variable. Multiple regression was used to test the primary hypothesis that participants in the high ordering concerns/disorganized condition would be most anxious at post-test. Despite an increase in statistical power as compared to the original study, this hypothesis was not supported. Neither self-reported ordering concerns nor room condition (nor the interaction of these two variables) was found to contribute to post-test anxiety ratings. Study limitations are considered in detail. Also considered are the implications of these findings for the study of OCD-ordering symptoms and for replication efforts of published research more broadly. NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY DE KALB, ILLINOIS DECEMBER 2018 ORDERING AND ARRANGING BEHAVIORS IN OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER: A REPLICATION AND EXTENSION BY SARAH R. LEE ©2018 Sarah R. Lee A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE MASTER OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY Thesis Director: Kevin D. Wu ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to many individuals for their time and expertise in helping this project come to be. I would first like to thank my thesis advisor, Kevin Wu, who provided me with support through every step of this process. Without his encouragement along the daunting process of developing my own experimental project and his critical eye toward improving the strength of my writing, this project would not exist. I would also like to thank my thesis committee members, Karen White and David Valentiner, for their comments and support of this project. Finally, I would like to thank the research assistants who contributed hours to the data collection efforts for this study: Kelly, Katelyn, Tom, Sonya, Juan, Mike, and especially Sarah. I would never have gathered enough participants without your help. Thank you! DEDICATION To my parents for their ongoing support, and to Ryan, who was with me every step TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES. vi LIST OF APPENDICES. vii Chapter