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To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2006.03.016 Byline: Arnoud Arntz, Marisol Voncken, Ank C.A. Goosen Keywords: Obsessive-compulsive disorder; Cognitive models; Cognitive therapy; Responsibility; Guilt Abstract: To test the causal status of responsibility in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), an experiment was executed in which responsibility was experimentally manipulated. OCD patients, non-OCD anxiety controls, and non-patients executed a classification task in either a high or a low responsibility (LoRes) condition. Subjective ratings related to danger and responsibility indicated that the manipulation was successful. Subjective OCD-like experiences and checking behaviors were higher in OCD patients in the high responsibility (HiRes) condition than in all other groups. Although the checking subscale of the Padua Inventory correlated with subjective ratings in the OCD patients in the HiRes condition, it was not associated with checking behaviors. The results confirm the hypothesis that responsibility plays a causal role in OCD. Author Affiliation: Department of Medical, Clinical and Experimental Psychology, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, NL-6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands Article History: Received 27 January 2006; Revised 27 March 2006; Accepted 28 March 2006

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2005.11.005 Byline: Marisol J. Voncken (a), Lynn E. Alden (b), Susan M. Bogels (a) Keywords: Social anxiety; Social phobia; Safety behaviors; Self-disclosure; Double standard Abstract: According to cognitive and interpersonal models, safety behaviors in social phobia (e.g., avoiding eye contact, hiding blushing) erroneously induce negative evaluation by interaction partners. Presumably, a bias about the social outcome of safety behaviors causes this negative interaction cycle. Such a bias might be subject to double standard in social phobia (i.e., having more stringent rules for oneself than for others). Female students (n=81) predicted more negative social outcomes for a prominent type of safety behavior, hiding anxiety, than for the opposite behavior, acknowledgment of anxiety and ongoing behavior (control condition) in scripts of self- and other-target persons. The relation between social anxiety and double standard was robust. Social anxiety did not relate to a cognitive bias regarding hiding ones anxiety, as we expected, but was associated with the belief that acknowledgment of anxiety has negative social outcomes specifically for them. These results are evaluated in light of the interpersonal consequences anxiety-related behaviors have in social interactions. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Medical Clinical and Experimental Psychology, University Maastricht, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands (b) University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada Article History: Received 26 July 2005; Revised 19 September 2005; Accepted 10 November 2005

Previous research demonstrated that social phobia is characterized by content-specific interpretation and judgmental biases. The present study investigated whether this interpretation bias occurs not only in ambiguous, but also in positive and negative social events, and whether social phobic patients (SPs) are more characterized by a judgmental bias in costs than in probability. Besides, we argued that the judgmental bias observed in former studies could also be attributed to accurate estimations of SPs (of, for example, stuttering). Therefore, we assessed judgmental bias by the ratings of probability and costs of a negative evaluation (e.g. 'people dislike me') and not, as in previous studies, of negative social events (e.g. 'stuttering'). SPs (n = 228) and normal controls (n = 33) were presented social and non-social events ranging from positive to profoundly negative. They ranked four different interpretations on likelihood to assess interpretation bias, and rated the profoundly negative interpretation on probability and cost to assess judgmental bias. SPs demonstrated content-specific interpretation and judgmental biases that also occurred in positive and negative social events. In contrast with expectations, SPs were characterized by a judgmental bias in both costs and probability. Keywords: Social phobia; Cognitive bias; Interpretation; Judgmental bias; Negative evaluation