Abstract
It has been contended that research about “Not Just Right Experiences” (NJREs) would be biased by the type of measures prevalently utilized to assess such phenomenon. That is, items intended to assess a construct conceptualized as a possible vulnerability factor of obsessive–compulsive (OC) symptoms may have tapped the symptoms themselves. In the current study, a picture-based measure of NJREs (NJR-PM) not derived from OC themes was administered to two samples of undergraduate students along with questionnaires of OC symptoms, general distress, and NJREs (the NJRE-Q-R). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses in these undergraduate samples showed that the NJR-PM had a unidimensional structure. The total score derived by the sum of ratings to each picture proved insensitive to gender. The NJR-PM was more strongly associated with the NJRE-Q-R than to general distress. Commonality analysis showed that the NJR-PM and the two NJRE-Q-R indices predicted OC symptoms both conjointly and in a distinct way. In addition, the NJR-PM predicted all common types of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms over and beyond general distress and discriminated individuals with high scores in OC symptoms from low-score counterparts. NJREs can be measured also without reference to patients’ symptoms and may therefore be useful in advancing our understanding of obsessive–compulsive disorder.
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Notes
Despite some slight differences in NJRE definition (e.g., lack of a sense of satisfaction, a sensation of “incompleteness,” or the subject’s underlying impression that “something is wrong”), almost all these studies used the same indicators to assess NJREs, so we can reasonably assume that they all refer to the same phenomena.
Recently, an interview-based format was also developed to evaluate this construct. However, the lack of data due to the novelty of such instrument and the heterogeneity of the content—rather different from the usual instruments to assess NJREs—do not allow to take it in consideration as a standard measure of NJREs.
Consistent with the theory, it has been observed that NJREs are present in more than 80% of individuals
We used this threshold to select a wide range of NJREs. As per our general goal, we wanted to develop a method derived by common experiences of laypeople.
A description of each item is provided in Supplementary material.
For the sake of clarity, covariances among items are not shown. They are available on request.
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Sica, C., Bottesi, G., Caudek, C. et al. Construct validity of “Not Just Right Experiences”: results from a picture-based assessment procedure. J Cogn Ther 12, 217–241 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41811-019-00054-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41811-019-00054-6