Superstitiousness in obsessive-compulsive disorder

Figures & data

Figure 1. A computer game differentiating superstitious behavior and superstitious belief.⁷ A: The screen as it was presented to 40 healthy subjects. They were instructed to move the mouse from the lower left corner onto the field containing the trap (using the cursor keys in the 4 cardina directions). The final move was either “rewarded” with the cheese or “punished” by the closing of the trap. The type of feedback depended on the amount of time the participant took to reach the target field; times faster than 4 sec were punished and slower times were rewarded with the cheese. Subjects were unaware of these contingencies and were instructed to find out, during 100 trials, “how the game worked.” Beliefs about the contingencies that determined success in the task were carefully assessed after completion of the task. B: Aspects of motor behavior for 20 subjects low on magical beliefs (MI scale⁹ scores 0 to 9; dashed lines) and for 20 high scorers (scores 1 0 to 20; solid lines). Top panel: across consecutive blocks, all subjects learned to get the cheese with increasing frequency (without noticing the critical contingency) Middle panel: all subjects increased the number of key presses per trial (“superstitious behavior”), to reach the field with the cheese. Bottom panel: another indicator of superstitious behaviour, the number of ineffective key presses (eg, pressing the UP key when already in the uppermost row), also increased over the task and independent of a subject's MI scores. C: Superstitious beliefs about task contingencies: subjects with low MI scores started out with many hypotheses, but most were abandoned in the course of the game and “blind” beliefs were virtually absent. Conversely, subjects with high MI scores tested fewer hypotheses during the game, but were not disinclined to believe in forms of contingencies they had never tested.

Figure 2. The hallmark of superstitiousness in OCD is stereotyped, repetitive behavioral routines, not necessarily accompanied by superstitious beliefs in false causal attributions.

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