Can Associating Unrelated Actions With Rewards Contribute to Compulsive Behaviors?

What you need to know

• People with more compulsive tendencies are more likely to associate unrelated actions with rewards, even when those actions don’t actually lead to rewards.
• This association between “outcome-irrelevant learning” and compulsivity exists separately from other factors like anxiety or reduced goal-directed thinking.
• Understanding how people form these false associations may help explain why some develop compulsive behaviors.

Compulsive behaviors and false associations

Compulsive behaviors are actions that people feel driven to perform, often to prevent some feared outcome. For example, someone might feel compelled to check that the door is locked multiple times before leaving home. These behaviors are very common - over 25% of people experience them to some degree.

Interestingly, people often engage in compulsive behaviors even when they know logically that the action doesn’t actually prevent the feared outcome. This raises the question: why do these false associations between actions and outcomes form in the first place?

The study: Looking at learning patterns

To explore this, researchers had 514 young adults complete questionnaires about compulsive tendencies and other mental health factors. Participants also did a computer task designed to measure different types of learning and decision-making.

The key type of learning the researchers focused on was called “outcome-irrelevant learning.” This refers to forming associations between actions and rewards, even when those actions don’t actually lead to the rewards.

Outcome-irrelevant learning and compulsivity

The main finding was that people who scored higher on measures of compulsive tendencies also showed more outcome-irrelevant learning in the computer task. In other words, they were more likely to associate unrelated actions with rewards.

Importantly, this link between outcome-irrelevant learning and compulsivity remained even after accounting for other factors like:

• Anxiety and depression symptoms
• Reduced goal-directed thinking (which has been linked to compulsivity in other studies)
• Obsessive thoughts

This suggests that outcome-irrelevant learning may contribute uniquely to compulsive tendencies, separate from these other factors.

Why this matters

Understanding how people form false associations between actions and outcomes could help explain why compulsive behaviors develop and persist. This study indicates that a tendency toward outcome-irrelevant learning may be one piece of that puzzle.

The researchers suggest that compulsive rituals may partly stem from people forming associations between their actions and desired outcomes, even when those associations don’t exist in reality. For instance, someone might come to believe that a certain gesture helps them bowl better, even though the gesture has no actual effect on the ball’s trajectory.

Limitations to keep in mind

It’s important to note that this study looked at tendencies in the general population, not diagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder. The associations found were also relatively small. More research is needed to determine if these findings apply to clinical populations or if altering outcome-irrelevant learning patterns could help reduce compulsive behaviors.

Additionally, this type of study can’t prove that outcome-irrelevant learning directly causes compulsive tendencies. It’s possible that compulsive tendencies lead to more outcome-irrelevant learning, rather than the other way around.

Conclusions

• People with more compulsive tendencies show increased “outcome-irrelevant learning” - forming associations between unrelated actions and rewards.
• This association exists separately from other factors like anxiety or reduced goal-directed thinking.
• Understanding how these false associations form may help explain the development of compulsive behaviors.
• More research is needed to explore if these findings apply to clinical populations and if they could inform new treatment approaches.

While many questions remain, this study provides an intriguing new angle for understanding the cognitive processes that may contribute to compulsive behaviors. By shedding light on how people learn to associate actions with outcomes, even incorrectly, we may gain valuable insights into why some individuals develop problematic compulsive tendencies.