Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) website provides a data collection platform with quick and inexpensive access to diverse samples. Numerous reports have lauded MTurk as capturing high-quality data with an epidemiological sample that is more representative of the U.S. population than traditional in-person convenience samples (e.g., undergraduate subject pools). This benefit, in combination with the ease and low-cost of data collection, has led to a remarkable increase in studies using MTurk to investigate phenomena across a wide range of psychological disciplines. Multiple reports have now examined the demographic characteristics of MTurk samples. One key gap remains, however, in that relatively little is known about individual differences in clinical symptoms among MTurk participants. This paper discusses the importance of assessing clinical phenomena in MTurk samples and supports its assertions through an empirical investigation of a large sample (N = 1,098) of MTurk participants. Results revealed that MTurk participants endorse clinical symptoms to a substantially greater degree than traditional nonclinical samples. This distinction was most striking for depression and social anxiety symptoms, which were endorsed at levels comparable with individuals with clinically diagnosed mood and anxiety symptoms. Participants' symptoms of physiological anxiety, hoarding, and eating pathology fell within the subclinical range. Overall, the number of individuals exceeding validated clinical cutoffs was between 3 and 19 times the estimated 12-month prevalence rates. Based on the current findings, it is argued that MTurk participants differ from the general population in meaningful ways, and researchers should consider this when referring to this sample as truly representative. (PsycINFO Database Record

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Water recycling is increasingly recognized as a critical strategy to maintain sustainable water supplies. Yet public acceptance of water recycling often lags behind. It is unclear the degree to which individuals are aware of the role of disgust in their decisions about recycled water, how important anticipated disgust is to willingness to use when controlling for other factors, and what the most effective method of presenting information about water recycling would be to decrease disgust reactions and increase willingness to use. We used a two‐pronged approach, combining a survey with open‐ended and psychometric measures with an experimental manipulation, in a U.S., web‐based sample (N = 428). Only 2% of participants self‐identified disgust as important to their decisions about recycled water. When measured directly using a Likert scale, however, anticipated disgust was the strongest predictor of willingness to use recycled water when controlling for individual differences that have been shown to impact willingness to use, including a subscale of individual pathogen disgust sensitivity. Finally, participants were exposed to an educational brochure about water reuse framed either affectively or cognitively or were shown a simple, neutral definition. Exposure to either the affectively or cognitively framed brochures lowered anticipated disgust, but did not significantly affect willingness to use recycled water compared to the neutral condition.

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Objectives Obsessive‐compulsive disorder (OCD) is a condition marked by recurrent and distressing thoughts, images, and urges accompanied by repetitive physical or mental rituals. An emerging line of work suggests that emotion may be an important consideration when looking at the role of impulsivity across the spectrum of psychopathology, including OCD. The current study examined the relationship between obsessive‐compulsive symptomatology (OCS) and impulsive cognitive and behavioural reactions to emotion using a multi‐study, multi‐method approach. Design Data were collected cross‐sectionally online (Study 1) or via an in‐person laboratory visit (Study 2). Methods In Study 1, self‐report measures of impulsivity and OCS were administered to a large, non‐selected community sample (N = 386). Study 2 extended these findings with a young adult sample (N = 107) with clinically elevated OCS using self‐report measures, clinical interview, and two behavioural symptom provocation tasks. Results Emotion‐related impulsivity, but not non‐emotion‐related impulsivity, was associated with greater severity of OCS across symptom domains and across all modes of assessment. Impulsive cognitive responses to emotion were associated with greater obsession severity, while impulsive behavioural reactions to emotion were associated with greater compulsions. Emotion‐related impulsivity also acted synergistically with a belief in the importance and control of thoughts, such that this established risk factor for OCD was associated with greater OCS severity only when behavioural reactivity to emotion was also present. Conclusions Results highlight the importance of considering emotional context when studying impulsivity in OCD, and point to the potentially differential relationship between OCS and behavioural versus cognitive impulsive reactions to emotion. Practitioner points Emotion‐related impulsivity (ERI) reflects a tendency to act impulsively in the context of strong emotions. ERI was associated with greater OCS across symptom domains and type of symptom assessment (self‐report, interview, or symptom provocation). ERI also interacted with an established OCS risk factor, a belief in the importance and control of thoughts, to predict symptom severity, suggesting that it may be important to evaluate and address ERI alongside unhelpful beliefs in patients with OCS. Given the present study’s cross‐sectional nature, we cannot draw conclusions about the directionality of the ERI – OCS relationship, and while our study included individuals with clinically elevated OCS, results should be replicated in a fully clinical sample.