Tülin Gençöz

OCD cognitions and symptoms in different religious contexts

Religious themes commonly feature in obsessions. Some theorists view religiosity as a potential risk factor, due to the hypothesized influence of religious acculturation on appraisals of unwanted intrusive thoughts. Several studies revealed that the relationship between religiosity and some OCD cognitions might change among various religions, possibly because of the differences in religious doctrines and teachings. The present study examined the relationship between religiosity and OCD symptoms and cognitions in different religious contexts. In this study, Muslim and Christian subjects from Turkey and Canada, respectively, were compared on OCD features by taking their level of religiosity into consideration. The results showed that having scored higher in OCD symptoms, Muslim participants reported more concerns on their thoughts and controlling them, and they also seemed to use worry strategy to manage their unwanted thoughts. On the other hand, regardless of religion category, high religious subjects reported to experience more obsessional thoughts and checking, while sensitivity on thoughts and emphases on control of thoughts and psychological fusion in morality were more salient for this group. Indeed, degree of religiosity also made a significant difference on thought-action fusion in morality domain especially for Christian subjects. In line with previous findings, the results of the present study support the association between religiosity and OCD even across two monotheistic religions. Besides, the characteristics of the religion might account for the differences in OCD cognitions and symptoms across both religions.

The temporal precedence of metacognition in the development of anxiety and depression symptoms in the context of life-stress: A prospective study

According to the metacognitive theory of psychological disorder, metacognitions are vulnerability factors in predicting development of psychological symptoms. The present study investigated metacognitive factors and life stress in a prospective test of their proposed temporal precedence in the development of anxiety and depression symptoms. Participants were 172 students and adults recruited in Ankara and Bolu, Turkey. Two separate sets of hierarchical regression analyses were conducted. In these analyses, Time 2 anxiety or depression was regressed on the main and interaction effects of metacognition and stress after controlling for baseline symptom levels measured at Time 1, age, and gender. Results revealed that negative metacognitive beliefs about the uncontrollability and danger of worry significantly predicted residual change in both anxiety and depression after controlling for the negative effect of stressful life events. Furthermore, lack of cognitive confidence interacted with daily hassles to predict the change in anxiety, when the baseline level of anxiety and other individual differences were controlled. Our results support the metacognitive theory of psychopathology.

Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale: The Turkish Version:

The present study aimed at establishing the Turkish version of the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale. For this aim interrater, test-retest, and internal reliability coefficients of the Turkish version were assessed as well as its convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity. Subjects were 88 patients with the diagnosis of generalized social phobia, 40 patients with a diagnosis of anxiety disorders other than generalized social phobia, and 40 people had no diagnosis of psychopathology. All reliability assessments indicated good reliability. For convergent and discriminant validity, correlations of 3 scores (2 subscales and the whole scale) and the Beck Anxiety Inventory were examined. Consistent with the expectations of the discriminant validity, correlations based on the whole sample were not significant. On the other hand, consistent with the expectations of the convergent validity, when patients with the diagnosis of generalized social phobia were considered, all the correlations were significant. Finally, the criterion validity of the Turkish version indicated that all 3 scores discriminated patients with the diagnosis of generalized social phobia, not only from the people who were free of psychopathology but also from the patients with the diagnosis of anxiety disorders other than generalized social phobia. Findings were discussed in the light of literature.

Development of Work Stress Scale for Correctional Officers

Introduction: This study aimed at examining the psychometric properties of Work Stress Scale for Correctional Officers (WSSCO). Methods: One hundred nineteen correctional officers (109 males and 10 females) employed in Turkey participated in this study. In addition to WSSCO, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS), and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) were administered to the participants. Results: The internal consistencies and the item-total correlations were acceptable both for the whole scale and for its subscales; namely, “work overload,” “role conflict and role ambiguity,” “inadequacies in physical conditions of prison,” “threat perception,” and “general problems.” Test–retest reliability coefficient was 0.77 for total scale, and test-retest reliability coefficients ranged between 0.68 and 0.78 for the subscales. The total scale and most of the subscales were positively correlated with depression, anxiety, and hopelessness, and negatively correlated with perceived social support. Furthermore, all subscales significantly differentiated high depressive symptomatology group from the low depressive symptomatology group. Conclusions: The present results revealed that the psychometric properties of WSSCO were quite adequate. The scale can provide a potentially useful tool for research on job stress in correctional officers.

The Relative Specificity of Excessive Reassurance-Seeking to Depressive Symptoms and Diagnoses Among Clinical Samples of Adults and Youth

In addition to playing a role in the deterioration of depressed peoples interpersonal environment, excessive reassurance-seeking may be implicated as a vulnerability factor for depression. If so, excessive reassurance-seeking should display relative specificity to depression versus other forms of psychopathology. Two studies of psychiatric inpatients (Study 1 on adults and Study 2 on children) tested this possibility. In Study 1 a Depressed group obtained higher reassurance-seeking scores than an Other Disorders group did. Similar findings were obtained in Study 2, such that depressed youth reported higher reassurance-seeking than nondepressed youth. Hence, these two studies of psychiatric inpatients provided reasonable support for the specificity of excessive reassurance-seeking to depression as compared to other forms of psychopathology.

Psychometric characteristics of the Penn State Worry Questionnaire and Metacognitions Questionnaire-30 and metacognitive predictors of worry and obsessive-compulsive symptoms in a Turkish sample.

The purpose of the present study was twofold. First, to examine the psychometric properties of the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) and the Metacognitions Questionnaire-30 (MCQ-30) in a Turkish sample. Second, to investigate metacognitive predictors of pathological worry and obsessive-compulsive (o-c) symptoms in this group. The sample included 561 non-clinical participants. Consistent with non-English versions, the Turkish version of the PSWQ was found to have a two-factor structure. The MCQ-30 was shown to be composed of five factors similar to the English version. Reliability analyses indicated that both the PSWQ and MCQ-30 possessed high internal consistency, split-half reliability and test-retest coefficients. As expected, both scales positively correlated with measures of o-c symptoms, trait anxiety, and anxiety and depression, as well as with each other. Negative and positive metacognitive beliefs about worry were significant predictors of both pathological worry and o-c symptoms. Cognitive confidence emerged as a specific predictor of worry, while beliefs about the need to control thoughts emerged as a unique predictor of o-c symptoms.

Specificity of information processing styles to depressive symptoms in youth psychiatric inpatients

Although information processing has been widely studied with depressed adults, little emphasis has been placed on the specificity of resultant findings to depression, as opposed to other psychological disorders. Analogously, even less effort has been directed toward examining the information processing styles of depressed children and adolescents. The present study investigated the specificity of information processing styles to depression and anxiety among 58 youth psychiatric inpatients. To assess information processing, we used a self-referent encoding task, in which participants were presented with positive and negative adjectives; participants were asked whether these adjectives described them or not, and were then tested on recall of the adjectives. After controlling for age and gender, lower rates of positive adjective endorsement and lower rates of positive adjective recall were found to be associated with depression, but not anxiety. Additionally, negative adjective endorsement was associated with anxiety symptoms. These results suggest specific cognitive features of depressive symptoms.

Vulnerability factors in OCD symptoms: cross-cultural comparisons between Turkish and Canadian samples.

Recent findings have suggested some potential psychological vulnerability factors for development of obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms, including cognitive factors of appraisal and thought control, religiosity, self-esteem and personality characteristics such as neuroticism. Studies demonstrating these associations usually come from Western cultures, but there may be cultural differences relevant to these vulnerability factors and OC symptoms. The present study examined the relationship between putative vulnerability factors and OC symptoms by comparing non-clinical samples from Turkey and Canada, two countries with quite different cultural characteristics. The findings revealed some common correlates such as neuroticism and certain types of metacognition, including appraisals of responsibility/threat estimation and perfectionism/need for certainty, as well as thought-action fusion. However, culture-specific factors were also indicated in the type of thought control participants used. For OC disorder symptoms, Turkish participants were more likely to utilize worry and thought suppression, while Canadian participants tended to use self-punishment more frequently. The association with common factors supports the cross-cultural validity of some factors, whereas unique factors suggest cultural features that may be operative in cognitive processes relevant to OC symptoms.

Discriminant validity of low positive affect: is it specific to depression?

Abstract The aim of this study was to reveal the effects of low Positive Affect on depression symptomatology. Due to the high correlations between depression and anxiety scores, it was also aimed to present a discriminative validity for these symptomatologies. The study was conducted with 81 university students, who were available during follow-up assessment as well. Consistent with expectations, analyses revealed that low Positive Affect predicted changes in depression symptomatology but did not predict changes in anxiety symptoms. Regarding Negative Affect, although zero-order correlations and hierarchical regression revealed Negative Affect as related with depression and anxiety measures; more conservative hierarchical regression equations where the changes of these symptomatologies were tested, by controlling for the variance accounted for by the changes in counterpart symptomatology, the effect of Negative Affect did not remain to be significant on either measure. Implications of these results were discussed in terms of their relevance to positive–negative affect and tripartite models, and also discriminative value of low Positive Affect for depression and anxiety measures was underlined.

Personality, social support, and anxiety among adolescents preparing for university entrance examinations in turkey

This study aimed to investigate the importance of different sources of perceived social support, sociotropic and autonomic personality dispositions, achievement expectation, and importance of academic achievement in predicting anxiety symptoms of male and female students who were preparing for the university entrance exam. Three hundred and forty students with ages varying from 16 to 21 participated in the study. Separate multiple regression analyses were run for males and females in predicting anxiety symptoms. The total Sociotropy score and the total Social Support score predicted anxiety for females, whereas for males, anxiety was predicted by four variables, namely, Achievement Expectancy, Concern over Approval, Social Support from Family, and Social Support from Friends. Implications of these results were discussed.