A mood-as-input account of perseverative checking: the relationship between stop rules, mood and confidence in having checked successfully

Abstract

The present paper reports the results of two experiments designed to test predictions from the mood-as-input account of perseverative checking. Using an analogue checking task, both experiments showed that perseveration, as indicted by a range of measures relevant to compulsive checking, was affected by the configuration of the stop rule for the task and mood at the outset of checking. Perseveration was most significant in the condition that most closely resembled the characteristics of obsessive-compulsive checkers (negative mood combined with a stop rule that specifies that the task should be done as thoroughly as possible—namely, an ‘as many as can’ stop rule). The studies also indicated that confidence at having completed the checking task successfully was (1) significantly related to the use of ‘as many as can’ stop rules at the outset of checking, (2) mood ratings at the end of checking, and (3) checking perseveration generally. These findings provide support for a mood-as-input explanation of perseverative psychopathologies such as compulsive checking, and begin to cast some light on how anxiety-reduction and ‘confidence’ models of compulsive checking, might be explained within broader mechanisms of perseveration.