This study investigated the effects of responsibility attitudes, locus of control and their interactions on general obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptomatology and dimensions of OC symptoms. Research subjects consisted of 385 senior high school students from Fatih Sultan Mehmet High School in Ankara. The students were given the Turkish version of Responsibility Attitudes Scale (RAS), the Maudsley Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory (MOCI), the Locus of Control Scale (LCS), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the Trait- State Anxiety Inventory-Trait Anxiety Form (TAI). The factor analysis of MOCI revealed three-factor solution. The factors were labeled as rumination, cleanliness/meticulousness, and checking. In order to examine possible gender differences, separate analyses of variance were conducted for the variables of general obsessive-compulsive symptomatology, and symptom subtypes. Results indicated that cleaning was the most common symptom subtype, followed by rumination and checking symptoms among Turkish high school students. Related to the gender differences, females reported more OC symptoms than males. Furthermore, females received significantly higher scores for cleaning subscale than male. Hierarchical regression analyses were performed to examine the relationships between responsibility attitudes, locus of control and their interactions on general OC symptomatology and its symptom subtypes in high school student sample. It was found that there was a significantly positive relationship between responsibility attitudes and general OC symptomatology. However, locus of control was not a significant predictor of general OC symptomatology. Furthermore, results revealed that there was a significant interaction effect of responsibility attitudes with locus of control on OC symptomatology. That is, an inflated sense of responsibility and the presence of external locus of control produced the highest OC symptoms. However, when the level of responsibility attitudes was low, externality or internality did not influence the levels of OC symptom. Related to dimensions of OC symptoms, responsibility was a weak predictor of rumination symptoms, and moderate predictor of cleanliness and checking symptoms. It was almost equally relevant for cleaning and checking symptoms. Locus of control and its interaction with responsibility attitudes only significantly predicted rumination symptoms. These results suggested that if the individual shows an overt behavior to prevent the external danger, locus of control does not play a significant role in OCD. The findings of the present study were discussed with current literature.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/3/12605117/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 June 2004 |
| Creators | Altin, Mujgan |
| Contributors | Karanci, Nuray |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
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