Department of Psychology, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, United States of America.
Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University, Bronx, New York, United States of America.
Compr Psychiatry. 2020 Aug;101:152187. doi: 10.1016/j.comppsych.2020.152187. Epub 2020 May 27.
Past research links hoarding disorder (HD) to indecisiveness and difficulty with decision-making. However, it remains unclear what contributes to difficulty making decisions in HD. Decision-making research suggests that some individuals have a maximizing decision-making style (seeking the best option through an exhaustive search of all existing alternatives) while others "satisfice" (choosing options that are satisfactory even without seeing all options). Past work has linked the dispositional tendency to maximize in decisions to elevated depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms, but no study has investigated whether maximizing may be relevant for hoarding behaviors.
We administered measures of hoarding behaviors, decision-making style (maximizing vs satisficing), generalized difficulty with decision-making (indecisiveness), distress (depression, anxiety and stress symptoms) and OCD symptoms to a sample of community adults (N = 1113) recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk).
The tendency to maximize in decision-making was significantly correlated with hoarding symptoms (including difficulty discarding possessions, excessive acquisition, and clutter). Moreover, regression results showed that maximizing predicted hoarding severity after controlling for indecisiveness, general distress and OCD symptoms.
We utilized self-report questionnaires in an unscreened community sample. Replication in a clinical sample is needed.
The dispositional tendency to maximize in decisions may represent a specific aspect of decision-making relevant for hoarding behaviors. Implications for improving cognitive-behavioral models and treatments are discussed.
既往研究表明囤积障碍（HD）与犹豫不决和决策困难有关。然而，导致 HD 患者决策困难的原因仍不清楚。决策研究表明，一些个体具有最大化决策风格（通过对所有现有选择进行详尽搜索来寻求最佳选择），而另一些个体则“满足”（即使没有看到所有选择，也选择满意的选项）。既往研究已经将决策中最大化的倾向与升高的抑郁、焦虑和强迫症（OCD）症状联系起来，但尚无研究调查最大化是否与囤积行为相关。
我们向通过亚马逊 Mechanical Turk（MTurk）招募的社区成年人样本（N=1113）发放了囤积行为、决策风格（最大化与满足）、广义决策困难（犹豫不决）、痛苦（抑郁、焦虑和压力症状）和 OCD 症状的测量工具。
决策中最大化的倾向与囤积症状（包括难以丢弃物品、过度获取和杂物过多）显著相关。此外，回归结果表明，在控制犹豫不决、一般痛苦和 OCD 症状后，最大化预测了囤积严重程度。
我们在未筛选的社区样本中使用了自我报告问卷。需要在临床样本中进行验证。
决策中最大化的倾向可能代表与囤积行为相关的特定决策方面。讨论了改善认知行为模型和治疗的意义。
