Laura J Summerfeldt

• Ph.D.
• Trent University

Building upon work by Rasmussen and Eisen, our group has proposed a model comprising two core motivational dimensions underlying obsessive-compulsive symptoms: harm avoidance and incompleteness. The model has received increasing attention; however the structural soundness and divergence of its factors have yet to be investigated fully, either as sy...

This study examined the associations between clinical anxiety, domains of emotional intelligence (EI), and three clinician-rated indices of maladjustment. Of key interest was whether social phobia (SP) is unique among anxiety disorders in being characterized by lower levels of Interpersonal and, particularly, Intrapersonal EI, and whether these dif...

Incompleteness-the troubling and irremediable sense that one's actions or experiences are not "just right"--appears to underlie many of the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Because incompleteness may reflect basic sensory-affective dysfunction, it presents a challenge to clinicians wishing to apply cognitive-behavioral treatments. I...

Background Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms are hypothesized to be driven by two core motivations: harm avoidance and incompleteness. While cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment for OCD, many posit that OCD presentations characterized by high incompleteness may be harder to treat. The relationship between the cor...

Objective To expand on current adult ADHD literature by investigating the stability of ADHD symptomatology (i.e., inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity) across a 15-year period (from emerging adulthood to early middle adulthood) and the relative contributions of ADHD symptomatology to life success. Method A sample of 320 post-secondary student...

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a leading cause of disability world-wide (World Health Organization, 2008). Treatment of OCD is a specialized field whose aim is recovery from illness for as many patients as possible. The evidence-based psychotherapeutic treatment for OCD is specialized cognitive behavior therapy (CBT, NICE, 2005, Koran and S...

Objective To improve on several methodological issues regarding current literature investigating the relationship between ADHD symptomatology and academic success in adults and examine the relative contributions of specific dimensions of ADHD symptomatology (i.e., inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity) to post-secondary academic success. Met...

Although it is widely held that emotional intelligence (EI) contributes to more satisfying interpersonal relationships, the question has been investigated almost exclusively using cross-sectional designs. In fact, the use of longitudinal designs is rare in the EI area. While prior research has found that better perception, understanding, and managi...

A growing body of literature suggests that obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a heterogeneous condition. The studies investigating symptom dimensions have been limited by numerous methodological differences and sample characteristics. The purpose of this study was to compare the two most commonly applied statistical techniques used in addressin...

Background The division of symptom themes into those related to incompleteness (INC) and those related to harm avoidance (HA) has been identified as an alternative to conventional subtyping. The aim of this study was to elucidate any potential differences between these two symptom themes based on neuropsychological task performance. Method: Partici...

The transition from high school to a post-secondary setting is a stressful period for most individuals, and difficulties with social and emotional adjustment are strong predictors of student dropout and underachievement. In this context, emotional intelligence (EI) has been studied as a possible explanatory variable for a range of post-secondary ad...

This presentation reports on preliminary findings of the Trent Academic Success and Wellness Project (TASWP). This longitudinal study, begun at Trent University (Ontario, Canada) in 2000, administered a measure of emotional intelligence (EQ-i:Short) to four consecutive cohorts of 1st-year undergraduate students at the start of their academic studie...

The present study examined the link between problematic gambling and gambling related cognitions (GRCs) in a large sample of adolescents with (N = 266) and without (N = 1,738) special education needs (SEN) between the ages of 14 and 18 years attending several high schools in eastern central Ontario. The adolescents with SENs were identified as havi...

The present study examined the association between trait emotional intelligence (TEI) and ADHD symptomatology in samples of 1388 adolescents (ages 14–17 years) and 3313 young adults (ages 18–24 years). Consistent with the notion that difficulties in emotion processing and affect regulation are important features of ADHD, TEI was found to be a moder...

This study examined the relationship between bullying behaviour and emotional intelligence (EI) in Canadian high-school adolescents (N = 1694). EI was measured using the Emotional Quotient Inventory: Youth Version (EQi:YV; Bar-on & Parker, 2000) while bullying and/or victimization was assessed using an adaptation of the Bully/Victim Inventory (Olwe...

The study examined the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and several addiction-related behaviours (gambling problems, Internet abuse, and computer gaming misuse) in two adolescent samples: 270 clinical outpatients (180 males and 90 females) and 256 special needs students (160 males and 96 females). Gambling problems, Internet abuse,...

The obsessive-compulsive behaviors central to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) are not uncommon in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), however the association between these disorders is not yet clear. One construct which may be useful in delineating their overlapping characteristics is “Incompleteness” or a sense of things feeling “not just right”....

The present study examined the factor structure of the Gambling Related Cognitions Scale (GRCS); (Raylu and Oei in Addiction 99:757-769, 2004) in a large sample of adolescents (N = 1,490) between the ages of 16 and 18 years (630 males, 860 females) attending several high schools in central Ontario. Problem gambling was measured using the DSM-IV-J (...

The present study examined the prevalence of disordered gambling behaviours in a community-based sample of adolescents (N = 532) living in eastern central Ontario. Of particular interest was examining the hypothesis that adolescents with learning disorders are at elevated risk for disordered gambling. Rates of disordered gambling in male adolescent...

Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is associated with significant functional impairment across various life domains, including reduced physical functioning, increased use of healthcare services, financial difficulty, and lower overall quality of life. The present study investigated whether domains of functional impairment vary across OCD symptom s...

The Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) is a self-report scale developed as a screener for Autism Spectrum Disorders and also to measure autistic traits found in the general population. Research has examined its factor structure, resulting in several different measurement models. The current study empirically tested previous models of the AQ using confir...

Preliminary efforts to demonstrate the utility of a self-rated version of the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) have been promising; however, earlier reports are based on small clinical samples. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the level of agreement between the clinician-administered Y-BOCS and a self-report version....

The current study investigated whether exposure with response prevention (ERP) for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is more effective when administered in a participant's home or other natural environments where symptoms tend to occur, than in a therapist's office. Twenty-eight outpatients with a principal diagnosis of OCD were randomly assigned...

Historically, psychologists have considered patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) challenging to treat, with significant numbers failing to benefit from treatment. The heterogeneity of the population and the complexity of the disorder have been contributing factors. However, cognitive-behavioral treatments are showing great promise, par...

Previous studies have found that social phobia (social anxiety disorder) is associated with elevated levels of perfectionism, particularly concerns over making mistakes (CM) and doubts about actions (DA). This study investigated the extent to which various dimensions of perfectionism change as a result of participating in a 12-session cognitive-beh...

There has been no published investigation made of the relationship between social anxiety and emotional intelligence (EI), or of their shared impact upon interpersonal adjustment. This study examined these questions using structural equation modeling with self-report data from a large nonclinical sample (N = 2629). EI was found to be highly related...

Little is known about why certain obsessional thoughts are more upsetting than others for people with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Obsessional thought content often seems arbitrary to sufferers. The current study examined three possible reasons why particular thoughts would be especially upsetting for individuals, based on suggestions put f...

The diverse symptomatology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is being increasingly regarded as reducible to a few symptom dimensions. However, prevailing factor-analytically derived models of symptom structure omit a number of the well-recognized "miscellaneous" symptoms of OCD. This study sought to determine whether miscellaneous OCD symptoms...

Understanding comorbidity is an important challenge for psychopathology researchers and diagnostic systems given the repeated finding of very high comorbidity rates among Axis I disorders in psychiatric samples. This paper proposes that perfectionism may be a critical factor for understanding levels of comorbidity, and a conceptual argument for the...

This study investigated the relationship between impulsivity and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS) was used to examine (i) levels of impulsivity in individuals with OCD, panic disorder, and social phobia, as well as in nonclinical controls, and (ii) the relationship between tics and impulsivity in patients w...

The transition from high school to university was used as the context for examining the relationship between emotional intelligence and academic achievement. During the first month of classes 372 first-year full-time students at a small Ontario university completed the short form of the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i:Short). At the end of the a...

In light of current interest in an obsessive-compulsive spectrum of disorders, this study sought to determine whether comorbidity patterns support the unique relationship hypothesized between these conditions and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Comparisons were made of lifetime rates of several proposed spectrum conditions in individuals with...

Chronic pain is the primary reason individuals seek medical treatment and such pain is associated with elevated levels of psychological distress. Thus, this study examined how coping and distress impacts one's subjective experience of chronic pain. During their first visit to a pain clinic, 166 chronic pain patients completed questionnaires on pain...

This preliminary study examined the relationship between anxiety disorders and self-reported history of teasing or bullying experiences, comparing individuals with social phobia, obsessive compulsive disorder, and panic disorder with or without agoraphobia. Given that aversive conditioning experiences, such as severe teasing, have been proposed to...

The Illness Intrusiveness Rating Scale (IIRS) is a measure designed to assess the impact of illness on various domains of functioning (G. M. Devins, 1994). In anxiety disordered patients, illness intrusiveness ratings are higher than those of chronically ill medical patients, suggesting that the IIRS may have a different underlying structure in a s...

The current study sought to examine the extent to which empirically supported psychological and pharmacological treatments were used by individuals with panic disorder (n = 41), social phobia (n = 34), or obsessive compulsive disorder (n = 21). Participants were recruited from an anxiety disorders clinic and completed a questionnaire about previous...

Although obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has long been a unitary diagnosis, there is much recent interest in its potential heterogeneity, as manifested by symptom subgroups. This study evaluated existing models of symptom structure in a sample of 203 individuals with OCD. Using confirmatory factor analysis, we examined the ability of each model...

In light of current concerns about the diagnostic classification of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), this article critically examines recent experimental research on anxiety-related cognitive biases in OCD in order to determine whether it provides grounds for OCD's differentiation from other anxiety disorders. This small body of work is found t...

Current conceptions relating psychological variables to health recognize the key role of coping processes as mediating variables between stress and illness, yet few reliable and valid instruments exist for the assessment of coping with physical health problems. A self-report instrument, the Coping With Health Injuries and Problems Scale (CHIP) was...

This study examined the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire in 32 patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Scores on the Harm Avoidance (HA) dimension alone were found to distinguish the patient from normal volunteers. The impact of multiple anxiety disorders and of the specific lower-order HA trait of fear of uncertainty was also demonstr...

The theoretical parameters of the 5-factor personality model, which underlie the item domain of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R), were assessed by subjecting the 30 subscales that comprise this scale to confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Results from the CFA with a normative sample of 1000 adults indicated poor fit between the obta...

Reviews and critiques the recent literature on the study of coping and health problems. Although coping variables now figure prominently in various health psychology models, the coping literature continues to be plagued by a variety of methodological weaknesses. These include the questionable reliability and validity of available measures, a failur...

despite [a] clear commonality, the bodies of research and theory on coping and psychopathology have evolved in relative isolation from one another, with surprisingly little mutual influence / this may arise, in part, from the former field's rather insular and well-delineated approach to what constitutes coping itself—a definition that can be distin...