{
  "abstract": "Both obsessive thoughts and an urge to act have been linked to compulsions cross-sectionally. However, prominent theories of compulsivity disagree quite fundamentally about whether compulsions are goal-oriented attempts to reduce or eliminate obsessive thoughts or are urge-driven and habitual. To shed light on this debate, we used multilevel vector autoregression modelling to analyse contemporaneous and temporal associations based on self-report symptoms and cognition from N = 179 individuals with and without diagnoses who performed compulsions. Six weeks of three-times daily timeseries data with a mean lag of five hours between assessments were gathered from a transdiagnostic sample who checked their phone compulsively, binge ate, or engaged in compulsions commonly seen in OCD (e.g. checking, cleaning). Across compulsions, the strongest within-person correlate of compulsions were urges (β = 0.61, pFDR < 0.001) and this was 3 times larger than obsessive thoughts and 4 times larger than anxiety. We found that urges predicted compulsions at the next assessment time point (β = 0.09, pFDR < 0.001), while compulsions themselves had a markedly low tendency to predict themselves (β = 0.04) compared to the other mental health symptoms sampled (0.12 < β < 0.23). Finally, like habits, compulsions occurred more often when executive functioning was low (β = 0.09, pFDR < 0.001). Based on real-time dynamics of compulsions, we find that urges, but not obsessive thoughts, predict compulsivity five hours later. Intriguingly, the associations were remarkably similar across compulsions, supporting the notion that transdiagnostically, a habit-like mechanism may underlie compulsive actions.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "School of Psychology and Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland",
    "FutureNeuro, the Research Ireland Centre for Translational Brain Science, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland",
    "Department of Psychology, University of York, York, UK",
    "School of Life and Medical Sciences, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK",
    "South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust, London, UK",
    "Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA",
    "Center for Computational Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA",
    "Global Brain Health Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland"
  ],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 9,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Vanessa Teckentrup",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-9974-4557"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Celine A. Fox"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Kelly R. Donegan"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Eoghan Gallagher"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Anna K. Hanlon"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Naomi A. Fineberg"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Ilenia Pampaloni",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-7547-4428"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        5,
        6
      ],
      "name": "Laura A. Berner",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-1430-8028"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1,
        7
      ],
      "name": "Claire M. Gillan",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-9065-403X"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/8cr4v21jnj54d.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1038/s41398-026-04350-6",
  "fulltext_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13714317/",
  "id": "8cr4v21jnj54d",
  "issns": [
    "2158-3188"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-026-04350-6",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "heading",
      "Article"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "3203|Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorders"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7172017009",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-026-04350-6_reference.pdf",
  "pmcid": "PMC13714317",
  "pmid": "42946731",
  "published": "2026-07-31",
  "publisher": "Nature Publishing Group",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/8cr4v21jnj54d.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-01T12:21:50Z",
      "native_id": "PMC13714317",
      "source": "pmc",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-026-04350-6"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "medicine",
      "origin": "openalex:3203|Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorders",
      "subfield": "psychiatry"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Experience sampling reveals habitual and transdiagnostic properties of compulsivity",
  "title_text": "Experience sampling reveals habitual and transdiagnostic properties of compulsivity",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-01T12:21:50Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/8cr4v21jnj54d",
  "venue": "Translational Psychiatry",
  "versions": []
}