The role of intolerance of uncertainty, trait anxiety, and OCD symptoms in checking behaviour and its associated concomitants

Manuel, A., Sridhar, S., Steenekamp, B., Sayin, B., Biagi, N. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7119-0767, Wake, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6202-7645 and Morriss, J. (2026) The role of intolerance of uncertainty, trait anxiety, and OCD symptoms in checking behaviour and its associated concomitants. Cognition and Emotion. ISSN 0269-9931 doi: 10.1080/02699931.2026.2671175 (In Press)

Abstract/Summary

Checking behaviours are commonly used to reduce uncertainty and prevent feared outcomes, but when excessive they are characteristic of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and other anxiety-related conditions. It remains unclear how transdiagnostic traits such as Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) and Trait Anxiety (TA), alongside OCD symptoms, influence checking behaviour under varying levels of threat and uncertainty. In this study (n = 208), threat was manipulated as either low (performance score only) or high (performance-contingent electric stimulation), and uncertainty was varied through the presence or absence of performance feedback during a visual discrimination and checking task. The goal of the task on each trial was to identify whether two successive shapes were identical or different. Measures included self-reported urge to check, distress, checking frequency, task accuracy, and corrugator supercilii muscle activity. Lower TA was associated with more checking under high versus low threat. However, no such difference in checking behaviour based on threat level was found for participants with higher TA. Lower TA was not associated with differences in reaction time when making decisions about the shape type, while higher TA was associated with slower reaction times when making decisions about shape type during low threat contexts where feedback was available. Higher IU predicted stronger urges to check and greater distress across conditions. Elevated OCD symptoms were related to similar corrugator responses to cues indicating feedback availability after viewing identical shapes, while lower OCD symptoms were associated with heightened corrugator activity when feedback was unavailable. These results suggest that IU, TA, and OCD symptoms may be responsible for different aspects of checking behaviour. However, conceptual replication is required, ideally using more reliable and ecologically valid paradigms.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/129759
Identification Number/DOI	10.1080/02699931.2026.2671175
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Psychology
Publisher	Taylor & Francis
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