It's not so much about what you touch: Mental contamination mediates the relationship between feared self-perceptions and contact contamination

We examined whether mental contamination, relative to established OCD belief domains, mediated the relationship between feared self-perceptions and contact contamination. In our sample of 626 undergraduate participants, feared self-perceptions significantly predicted contact contamination symptoms, with mental contamination and two OCD belief domains (perfectionism/intolerance of uncertainty, importance of/control over thoughts) as significant mediators. Importantly, mental contamination was the strongest mediator. These findings provide further evidence for the predictive power of vulnerable self-themes in OCD and highlight the important role of mental contamination in this relationship with regard to contamination symptoms.
Source: Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research