Emotional processing in people with obsessive-compulsive symptomatology

The present study was aimed at assessing obsessive-compulsive symptomatology based on visualization of affective pictures, elaborated following Peter Lang's dimensional model of emotion. Participants were 370 psychology students at Malaga University, selecting those with high and low scores in obsessive-compulsive symptomatology. All participants assessed a set of pictures containing obsessive-compulsive cues using the three scales of the Self-Assessment Manikin: affective valence, arousal, and control/dominance. The results show that participants with high scores in obsessive-compulsive symptomatology experience reduced control over the affective pictures and rate as more unpleasant the neutral and obsessive-compulsive pictures.