
Steven TaylorUniversity of British Columbia | UBC · Department of Psychiatry
Steven Taylor
PhD
About
383
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Introduction
Research focuses on the classification, biopsychosocial etiology, and treatment of anxiety disorders, particularly OCD and PTSD.
Additional affiliations
September 1991 - present
Publications
Publications (383)
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the mental health of more citizens globally than any previous modern viral outbreak. In response to the psychological challenges associated with COVID-19, the COVID Stress Scales (CSS) were developed to assess the presence and severity of COVID-related distress. The initial North American validation study of the CSS i...
According to the World Health Organization, pandemic fatigue poses a serious threat for managing COVID-19. Pandemic fatigue is characterized by progressive decline in adherence to social distancing (SDIS) guidelines, and is thought to be associated with pandemic-related emotional burnout. Little is known about the nature of pandemic fatigue; for ex...
Misophonia is a disorder of decreased tolerance to specific sounds or their associated stimuli that has been characterized using different language and methodologies. The absence of a common understanding or foundational definition of misophonia hinders progress in research to understand the disorder and develop effective treatments for individuals...
Background
No studies have examined whether levels of COVID stress vary across anxiety-related disorders. Likewise, no studies have assessed structural invariance of the COVID Stress Scales (CSS) across clinical diagnoses. We sought to address these issues in the present study. Given the dynamic nature of pandemics, we also assessed whether COVID s...
According to the World Health Organization, pandemic fatigue poses a serious threat for managing COVID-19. The cardinal feature of pandemic fatigue is a progressive decline in adherence to social distancing (SDIS) guidelines, which is associated with pandemic-related emotional burnout. Little is known about the nature of pandemic fatigue; for examp...
During pandemics such as COVID-19, voluntary self-isolation is important for limiting the spread of infection. Little is known about the traits that predict distress or coping with pandemic-related self-isolation. Some studies suggest that personality variables (e.g., introversion, conscientiousness, resilience, optimism) are important in predictin...
Background
There is considerable evidence of widespread emotional distress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. A growing number of studies have assessed posttraumatic growth related to the current pandemic; but, none have considered whether reported growth is real or illusory (i.e., characterized by avoidant or defensive coping that results in h...
Psychological stress reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic are complex and multifaceted. Research provides evidence of a COVID Stress Syndrome (CSS), consisting of (1) worry about the dangerousness of getting infected with SARSCoV2 and coming into contact with infected surfaces, (2) worry concerning the personal socioeconomic consequences of COVID-19,...
Misophonia is a disorder of decreased tolerance to specific sounds or their associated stimuli that has been characterized using different language and methodologies. The absence of a common understanding or foundational definition of misophonia hinders progress in research to understand the disorder and develop effective treatments for individuals...
Purpose of Review
To review the current state of knowledge on the newly proposed COVID Stress Syndrome.
Recent Findings
The syndrome consists of five inter-correlated elements: (a) fear of SARSCoV2 infection and fear of coming into contact with objects or surfaces contaminated with the coronavirus; (b) fear of socio-economic impacts of the pandemi...
Research shows that there has been a substantial increase in substance use and abuse during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that substance use/abuse is a commonly reported way of coping with anxiety concerning COVID-19. Anxiety about COVID-19 is more than simply worry about infection. Research provides evidence of a COVID Stress Syndrome characterized b...
This study reports a comprehensive empirical investigation of the nature and correlates of anti-mask attitudes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Accumulating evidence underscores the importance of facemasks, as worn by the general public, in limiting the spread of infection. Accordingly, mask wearing has become increasingly mandatory in public places s...
Excessive fear and worry in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., COVID stress syndrome) is prevalent and associated with various adverse outcomes. Research from the current and past pandemics supports the association between transdiagnostic constructs-anxiety sensitivity (AS), disgust, and intolerance of uncertainty (IU)-and pandemic-related di...
Pandemics are associated with panic buying (PB) of groceries and other supplies. During the COVID-19 pandemic, community leaders expressed frustration and bewilderment about PB. Psychological explanatory concepts, including those from social learning theory and the concept of the behavioral immune system, along with recent research, suggests the fo...
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the mental health of the people of Canada. Most have found it challenging to cope with social distancing, isolation, anxiety about infection, financial security and the future, and balancing demands of work and home life. For some, especially those who have had to face pre-existing challenges su...
The COVID Stress Scales (CSS) were designed to assess stress related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Emerging evidence indicates that people with anxiety disorders (ADs) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) may be more negatively impacted by COVID-19 than those with mood disorders or healthy individuals. Accordingly, this study sought to validate the...
Climate change involves (1) increases in the prevalence of extreme weather events (e.g., wildfires, floods, hurricanes), (2) more gradual climatic changes (e.g., rising sea levels, desertification), and (3) increased risks of pandemics and other widespread disease outbreaks. Anxiety evoked by the threat of climate change can be either adaptive or m...
Background
Many psychological factors play a role in the COVID-19 pandemic, including various forms of worry, avoidance, and coping. Adding to the complexity, some people believe the threat of COVID-19 is exaggerated. We used network analysis to investigate how these diverse elements are interrelated.
Methods
A population-representative sample of...
This study reports a comprehensive empirical investigation of the nature and correlates of anti-mask attitudes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Accumulating evidence underscores the importance of facemasks, as worn by the general public, in limiting the spread of infection. Accordingly, mask-wearing has become increasingly mandatory in public places s...
Importance
Vaccination hesitancy—the reluctance or refusal to be vaccinated—is a leading global health threat (World Health Organization, 2019). It is imperative to identify the prevalence of vaccination hesitancy for SARS-CoV2 in order to understand the scope of the problem and to identify its motivational roots in order to proactively prepare to...
Background
: Recent psychological research into the effects of COVID-19 has focused largely on understanding excessive fear reactions (“over-responses”). Equally important, but neglected phenomena concern “under-responses”, in which people downplay the significance of COVID-19. People who do not take the pandemic seriously may be less likely to adh...
Background
During past disease outbreaks, healthcare workers (HCWs) have been stigmatized (e.g., shunned, ostracized) by members in their community, for fear that HCWs are sources of infection. There has been no systematic evaluation of HCW stigmatization during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods
Non-HCW adults from the United States and Canada (N = 3...
Background
Research shows that the COVID Stress Scales have a robust multifactorial structure, representing five correlated facets of COVID‐19‐related distress: (a) Fear of the dangerousness of COVID‐19, which includes fear of coming into contact with fomites potentially contaminated with SARSCoV2, (b) worry about socioeconomic costs of COVID‐19 (e...
Background
People with pre-existing mental health conditions may be more susceptible to stressors associated with COVID-19 relative to the general population; however, no studies have assessed whether susceptibility differs between classes of mental health disorders. We assessed COVID-19-related stress, self-isolation stressors, and coping in those...
The novel coronavirus disease, also known as COVID-19, has brought upon a wave of unprecedented change, fear, and uncertainty. There is an urgent need to understand the factors and mechanisms implicated in the spread of COVID-19 and associated emotional distress. Likewise, establishing and mobilizing resources to manage the anticipated pervasive su...
Background
The Research Domain Criteria seeks to bridge knowledge from neuroscience with clinical practice by promoting research into valid neurocognitive phenotypes and dimensions, irrespective of symptoms and diagnoses as currently conceptualized. While the Research Domain Criteria offers a vision of future research and practice, its 39 functiona...
Research and clinical observations suggest that during times of pandemic many people exhibit stress- or anxiety-related psychopathology that include fear of becoming infected, fear of coming into contact with possibly contaminated objects or surfaces, fear of foreigners who might be carrying infection (i.e., disease-related xenophobia), fear of the...
Schon lange vor dem neuartigen Coronavirus wurden Szenarien für die Bekämpfung von Pandemien entworfen. Psychologischen Faktoren und emotionalen Belastungen wurde dabei bemerkenswert wenig Aufmerksamkeit zuteil. Mit der Zielsetzung, diese psychosoziale Dimension stärker zu beleuchten, erschien im Herbst 2019 die englischsprachige Originalausgabe di...
Schon lange vor dem neuartigen Coronavirus wurden Szenarien für die Bekämpfung von Pandemien entworfen. Psychologischen Faktoren und emotionalen Belastungen wurde dabei bemerkenswert wenig Aufmerksamkeit zuteil. Mit der Zielsetzung, diese psychosoziale Dimension stärker zu beleuchten, erschien im Herbst 2019 die englischsprachige Originalausgabe di...
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and insomnia are comorbid clinical conditions that are thought to result from genetic and environmental effects. Though studies have established the heritability of these disorders independently, no study to date has examined the genetic contributions to the relation between insomnia and PTSD symptoms (PTSS). Th...
Evidence suggests that Disgust Sensitivity (DS) is a personality trait that may confer risk for the development of some anxiety-related disorders. To examine the origins of this trait we administered the DS subscale of the Disgust Propensity and Sensitivity Scale-Revised to 90 monozygotic and 90 dizygotic twin pairs, of which 55% were women. The DS...
Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met is widely regarded as potentially important for understanding the genetic etiology of many different psychiatric disorders. The present study appears to be the first comprehensive meta-analysis of COMT genetic association studies to cover all psychiatric disorders for which there were available data, pu...
Misophonia, a phenomenon first described in the audiology literature, is characterized by intense emotional reactions (e.g., anger, rage, anxiety, disgust) in response to highly specific sounds, particularly sounds of human origin such as oral or nasal noises made by other people (e.g., chewing, sniffing, slurping, lip smacking). Misophonia is not...
Much remains to be learned about the etiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Twin studies suggest that it arises from both disorder-specific and non-specific genetic factors. To understand the etiology of OCD per se, it is necessary to identify disorder-specific factors. Previous research shows that OCD is associated with serotonin-related...
This chapter describes the contemporary treatments for health anxiety, summarizes the research on their efficacy, provides illustrative examples of treatment interventions, and discusses important issues that need to be addressed in order to improve the treatment of health anxiety. It discusses the meta-analysis of treatments for health anxiety. Ex...
This chapter focuses on symmetry, ordering, and arranging obsessions and compulsions (SOA) in adults diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). It reviews the descriptive psychopathology of SOA and the empirical literature on the treatment, discusses what is known about the biopsychosocial etiology, and describes cognitive-behavioral inter...
Intrusive musical imagery (IMI) consists of involuntarily recalled, short, looping fragments of melodies. Musical obsessions are distressing, impairing forms of IMI that merit investigation in their own right and, more generally, research into these phenomena may broaden our understanding of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which is phenomenolo...
Reiss (1991) described three “fundamental” fears-anxiety sensitivity, fear of negative evaluation, and injury/illness sensitivity-as distinct individual differences underlying fearful reactions. Taylor (1993) evidenced the distinctions, but the results have not been replicated despite developments in theory and measures. Intolerance of uncertainty...
The recently published DSM-5 contains a number of changes pertinent to panic disorder and agoraphobia. These changes include separation of panic disorder and agoraphobia into separate diagnoses, the addition of criteria and guidelines for distinguishing agoraphobia from specific phobia, the addition of a 6-month duration requirement for agoraphobia...
Contemporary models of obsessive-compulsive disorder emphasize the importance of harm avoidance (HA) and related dysfunctional beliefs as motivators of obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms. Recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in Janet's (1908) concept of incompleteness (INC) as another potentially important motivator. Contemporary inves...
Analogue samples are often used to study obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms and related phenomena. This approach is based on the hypothesis that results derived from such samples are relevant to understanding OC symptoms in individuals with a diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Two decades ago, Gibbs (1996) reviewed the available lite...
Dissemination methods are used to increase the likelihood that a given treatment or form of clinical practice is implemented by clinicians in the community. Therapist training in treatment methods is an important component of dissemination. Successful dissemination also requires that roadblocks to treatment implementation are identified and circumv...
Several traits of impulsiveness (e.g. lack of planning and perseverance, difficulty focusing attention) seem intimately connected to the skills required for successful prospective memory performance. This is the first study to examine whether the various inter-correlated dimensions of impulsiveness are related to problems with prospective memory. U...
Genetic association studies of obsessive‐compulsive disorder (OCD) have yielded inconsistent findings because those studies have tended to have small sample sizes and low statistical power, thereby making it difficult to reliably detect small genetic effects. Meta‐analysis combines individual studies thereby increasing the power to detect small eff...
According to an integrative model of checking compulsions, experiences with prospective memory failures diminish confidence in the ability to reliably execute tasks and lead to intrusive doubts that previous tasks were not properly completed. These intrusive doubts trigger attempts to recall performing the task in question, however, diminished conf...
Twin research shows that obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) arises from a combination of genetic and environmental factors, including those that are general (OCD nonspecific) and those that are specific to each of the major types of OCD symptoms. Little is known about the nature of these various etiologic influences. The concept of endophenotype w...
Previous research has demonstrated links between prospective memory failures and checking compulsions. The findings suggest that experiences with prospective memory failures may contribute to the intrusive doubts that tasks were not completed that instigate checking compulsions. However, the link between prospective memory and intrusive doubts has...
Health anxiety occurs when a person interprets bodily changes, sensations, or other stimuli (e.g., medical test results) as suggesting that his or her health is in jeopardy. Health anxiety can be adaptive, especially if it motivates the person to obtain appropriate medical care. However, health anxiety can also be excessive; that is, disproportiona...
Twin studies indicate that obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is strongly influenced by additive genetic factors. Yet, molecular genetic association studies have yielded inconsistent results, possibly because of differences across studies in statistical power. Meta-analysis can yield greater power. This study reports the first comprehensive meta-a...
This article describes clinical strategies derived from the looming vulnera-bility model (Riskind, 1997a; Riskind & Williams, 2005). "Looming vulner-ability" is a phenomenon involving anxiety and behavioral urgency marked by dynamic perceptions of a threatening stimulus as moving swiftly toward oneself in time or space. The looming vulnerability mo...
Reviews the book, The Oxford Handbook of Traumatic Stress Disorders edited by J. Gayle Beck and Denise M. Sloan (see record 2012-04019-000 ). In this book, the editors have assembled a group of leading investigators to provide a comprehensive, empirically grounded review of the literature. The 37 chapters consist of introductory and concluding chap...
This article describes clinical strategies derived from the looming vulnerability model (Riskind, 1997a; Riskind & Williams, 2005). “Looming vulnerability” is a phenomenon involving anxiety and behavioral urgency marked by dynamic perceptions of a threatening stimulus as moving swiftly toward oneself in time or space. The looming vulnerability mode...
This chapter focuses on cognitive models of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and related disorders. It begins with a historical perspective, in which the antecedents of cognitive models are described. Contemporary cognitive models are then reviewed, predictions derived from the models are identified, and empirical evidence for these predictions...
Exposure and response prevention (ERP) is one of the oldest and most effective treatments for obsessive compulsive disorder. The present chapter describes the empirical foundations, development, delivery, and latest research on ERP. Commonly used methods and procedural variants of ERP are described, along with findings concerning the underlying mec...
The relative importance of genetic and environmental factors in the etiology of obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms is unclear. Cognitive-behavioral models propose that shared environment (e.g., parenting style) is important. Family segregation studies suggest that nonadditive genetic factors may be involved. To investigate the etiology of OC sympto...
Cognitive-behavioral models conceptualize health anxiety as a construct that varies in degree along a continuum rather than existing as nonpathological versus pathological classes or taxons. Only two studies have empirically evaluated the latent structure of health anxiety, both using taxometric statistical methods and both supporting its conceptua...
Little is known about the etiologic relationship between obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms and traits of OC personality disorder. The traits include perfectionism and rigidity. Some theorists have proposed that OC personality disorder is one of several disorders falling within an OC spectrum. This implies that OC personality traits and symptoms sh...
The distinction between early versus late onset is important for understanding many different kinds of disorders. In an effort to identify etiologically homogeneous subtypes of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), numerous studies have investigated whether early onset OCD (EO) can be reliably distinguished from a comparatively later onset form of t...
It is essential that outcome research permit clear conclusions to be drawn about the efficacy of interventions. The common practice of nesting therapists within conditions can pose important methodological challenges that affect interpretation, particularly if the study is not powered to account for the nested design. An obstacle to the optimal des...
The present study tested multiple, competing latent structural models of anxiety sensitivity (AS), as measured by the Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3 (ASI-3; Taylor et al., 2007). Data were collected from 3 sites in North America (N=634). Participants were predominantly university students (M=21.3 years, SD=5.4). ASI-3 data were evaluated using an inte...
Accumulating evidence suggests that particular kinds of dysfunctional beliefs contribute to obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms. Three domains of beliefs have been identified: (a) perfectionism and intolerance of uncertainty, (b) overimportance of thoughts and the need to control thoughts, and (c) inflated responsibility and overestimation of threat...
It is unknown whether various types of obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms have a common genetic or environmental etiology. For example, it is unknown whether hoarding is etiologically associated with prototypic OC symptoms, such as washing, checking, and obsessing. Also unknown is whether particular OC-related symptoms are etiologically linked to t...
Steven Taylor S. Afiffi Stein- [...]
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Contemporary cognitive models of obsessive-compulsive disorder, derived from Beck's cognitive approach to emotional disorders, emphasize the importance of particular dysfunctional beliefs in giving rise to obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms. These beliefs represent three factor-analytically distinct domains: (a) The overimportance of one's thoughts...
Contemporary cognitive models of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) suggest that three types of dysfunctional beliefs contribute to the development and maintenance of obsessivecompulsive (OC) symptoms. These are beliefs characterized by themes of (a) inflated personal responsibility and the overestimation of threat (RT), (b) perfectionism and the...
Theoretical considerations and several case studies suggest that trauma-related exposure therapy (TRE), which is one of the leading treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), may be augmented by adding interoceptive exposure (IE) therapy. The patient is a retired veteran with chronic PTSD as the primary (most severe) disorder and comorbid...