Construct validity of “Not Just Right Experiences”: results from a picture-based assessment procedure

It has been contended that research about “Not Just Right Experiences” (NJREs) would be biased by the type of measures prevalently utilized to assess such phenomenon. That is, items intended to assess a construct conceptualized as a possible vulnerability factor of obsessive–compulsive (OC) symptoms may have tapped the symptoms themselves. In the current study, a picture-based measure of NJREs (NJR-PM) not derived from OC themes was administered to two samples of undergraduate students along with questionnaires of OC symptoms, general distress, and NJREs (the NJRE-Q-R). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses in these undergraduate samples showed that the NJR-PM had a unidimensional structure. The total score derived by the sum of ratings to each picture proved insensitive to gender. The NJR-PM was more strongly associated with the NJRE-Q-R than to general distress. Commonality analysis showed that the NJR-PM and the two NJRE-Q-R indices predicted OC symptoms both conjointly and in a distinct way. In addition, the NJR-PM predicted all common types of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms over and beyond general distress and discriminated individuals with high scores in OC symptoms from low-score counterparts. NJREs can be measured also without reference to patients’ symptoms and may therefore be useful in advancing our understanding of obsessive–compulsive disorder.