Whom are you mad at? Anger and revenge in obsessive-compulsive symptoms during adolescence

Previous research has extensively explored the role of anxiety, disgust, guilt, and shame in obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms, but few studies have investigated anger and associated vengeful motivations, especially during adolescence, when OC symptoms typically onset. This is unfortunate as anger is a key human emotion linked to various aspects of behaviour. Our aim was to explore how anger and revenge motivations were associated with the most common OC subtypes in adolescents. Participants were 1,035 high school students who completed a battery of questionnaires including the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Child Version, the Children’s Depression Inventory, the Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations Inventory-18 and the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory for children and adolescents. Even when accounting for different aspects of anger, TRIMs and depression, trait anger (i.e., a stable tendency to experience anger) was uniquely associated with all types of OC symptoms (doubting/checking, obsessing, and ordering). Unique associations were also found between revenge motivation and doubting/checking and obsessing. Our findings show that adolescents with high OC symptoms may experience not only intense anger, but also vengeful feelings and motivations. Future research should examine how anger, vengeful motivations and OC symptoms co-develop over time. Clinicians should be aware that anger and vengeful motivations can be part of the clinical presentation of OCD, which can inform assessment and treatment.