118 COGNITIVE THEORY AND RESEARCH ON ANXIETY
ent the OBQ is probably the best measure of OCD beliefs, although certain weaknesses
are apparent in its construct validity.
It is also becoming increasing clear that only certain belief domains like responsibil-
ity, importance, and control of thoughts may be specific to OCD whereas other domains
like threat overestimation and perfectionism are common across the anxiety disorders.
Although there has been some inconsistency across studies, beliefs about the importance
of thoughts and need to control thoughts have tended to differentiate OCD patients
from other anxiety groups, with responsibility and overestimated threat sometimes
showing specificity but perfectionism and intolerance of uncertainty more often emerg-
ing as nonspecific across the anxiety disorders (e.g., Anholt et al., 2006; Clark, Purdon,
& Wang, 2003; Sica et al., 2004; Tolin, Worhunsky, & Maltby, 2006; see Emmelkamp
& Aardema, 1999, for contrary results). Moreover, some beliefs may be particularly
relevant for certain OCD subtypes such as importance/control of thoughts for pure
obsessions, or perfectionism/intolerance of uncertainty for OCD checking (Calarami et
al., 2006; Julien, O’Connor, Aardema, & Todorov, 2006). Also, cluster analytic stud-
ies with the OBQ suggest that not all patients with OCD will necessarily endorse these
OCD beliefs, leading some researchers to question whether dysfunctional beliefs plays a
role in all OCD cases (Calamari et al., 2006; Taylor et al., 2006).
Recently there has been an attempt to determine whether preexisting dysfunctional
beliefs might prospectively predict an escalation in OC symptoms. Eighty-five parents
who were expecting their first child were administered the OBQ-44 and other mea-
sures of anxious and obsessional symptoms prenatally and then 3 months postpartum
(Abramowitz, Khandker, Nelson, Deacon, & Rygwall, 2006). Most of the mothers
and fathers reported distressing intrusive thoughts about their newborns at the fol-
low-up assessment, and regression analyses revealed that OBQ Total Scores predicted
an increase in postpartum OC symptoms as determined by the Yale–Brown Obses-
sive Compulsive Scale and the Obsessive– Compulsive Inventory— Revised. In a 6-week
prospective study involving 377 undergraduates, Coles and Horng (2006) found that
OBQ-44 Total Scores predicted an increase in OC symptoms as measured by the Obses-
sive Compulsive Inventory Total Score but the interaction between beliefs and negative
life events failed to reach significance. However, in a second study Coles and colleagues
failed to entirely replicate this finding (Coles, Pietrefesa, Schofield, & Cook, 2007), with
OBQ-44 showing only a trend toward significance and no interaction with negative life
events.
Researchers have examined the types of dysfunctional beliefs found in other anxi-
ety disorders. Preexisting maladaptive beliefs about worry and its consequences are evi-
dent in chronic worry and GAD (Cartwright- Hatton & Wells, 1997; Dugas et al., 2005;
Dugas, Gagnon, Ladouceur, & Freeston, 1998; Wells & Cartwright- Hatton, 2004;
Ruscio & Borkovec, 2004; Wells & Papageorgiou, 1998a). Wenzel, Sharp, Brown,
Greenberg, and Beck (2006) found that beliefs relevant to panic such as the anticipation
of anxiety, concern about physical and emotional catastrophes, and self- deprecation
were more closely associated with anxiety and panic symptoms than with self- reported
depression. Individuals with social anxiety may endorse a number of early maladaptive
schemas as indicated by elevated scores on the Young Schema Questionnaire subscales
of Emotional Deprivation, Guilt/Failure, Social Undesirability/Defectiveness, Depen-
dence, and the like (Pinto- Gouveia, Castilho, Galhardo, & Cunha, 2006). Overall there
is some indication that enduring maladaptive beliefs about threat and vulnerability