Visual Imagery Perspective, Internal States, and Obsessive Compulsive Tendencies

• Applicant: Zachary Niese, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 505700272

The current project will examine the relation between the thinking styles typical of people high in obsessive-compulsive tendencies and the thinking styles evoked by visual imagery from the first-person vs. third-person perspective. Our preliminary findings show that people high in obsessive-compulsive tendencies are prone to use third-person (vs. first-person) imagery. In this project, we will further explore this connection, testing how the thinking styles evoked by third-person (vs. first-person) imagery shifts people’s focus away from their internal states and increases reliance on proxies (a thinking pattern typical of people with high obsessive-compulsive tendencies). We will also explore how this shift might distort people’s sense of agency in ways similar to the distortions found among people high in obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Finally, we will test if using first-person imagery (which evokes a thinking style that enhances reliance on experiential reactions) can help people high in obsessive-compulsive tendencies increase reliance on their internal states and reduce reliance on seeking proxies to those states. Thus, the current project represents a collaboration combining the applicant’s expertise in research on the thinking styles evoked by first-person and third-person visual perspectives with the collaboration partner’s expertise on the thinking patterns typical of people with obsessive-compulsive tendencies. In doing so, the current project seeks to shed light on the broader research question of when people do (and do not) rely on their internal states to guide their information and judgments, thereby providing novel insights to the literatures on visual imagery and obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Additionally, the current project takes the first steps toward developing an intervention to help improve people’s access to their internal states and prevent the consequences of inferring those states from proxies.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Israel
• International Co-Applicant: Professor Reuven Dar, Ph.D.