Maximizing decision-making style and hoarding disorder symptoms.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Clinical Psychology
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Hoarding disorder (HD) is associated with indecisiveness and impaired decision-making.
• The specific decision-making factors contributing to HD remain unclear.
• Maximizing (seeking the best) and satisficing (seeking satisfactory) are two decision-making styles.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between maximizing decision-making style and hoarding behaviors.
• To determine if maximizing predicts hoarding severity independently of other factors.

Main Methods:

• 1113 community adults recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk completed self-report measures.
• Measures included hoarding symptoms, decision-making style (maximizing vs. satisficing), indecisiveness, distress, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms.

Main Results:

• Maximizing decision-making tendency significantly correlated with hoarding symptoms (difficulty discarding, excessive acquisition, clutter).
• Maximizing predicted hoarding severity even after controlling for indecisiveness, general distress, and OCD symptoms.

Conclusions:

• The tendency to maximize decisions may be a specific decision-making characteristic relevant to hoarding disorder.
• Findings suggest implications for refining cognitive-behavioral models and treatments for HD.