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CHAPTER 4 98 experimental condition engaged in a large number of checking-related safety behaviors for seven consecutive days, to simulate the natural behavior of patients with checking OCD. Although patients with OCD often repeatedly check the same objects, their rigidity and the repetitiveness of their behavior may also become visible in mere checking rituals. This often involves checking a series of objects in a certain order, every time they leave the house or go to bed, for instance. In the present study we chose to include this last type of checking behavior, because it seemed more plausible that healthy participants would comply to this and be able to incorporate it into their daily life for a period of one week. As mentioned earlier, contrary to Deacon and Maack (2008), Olatunji et al. (2011) did include a control condition that monitored daily safety behavior. However, as Olatunji et al. (2011) discuss, it is unknown whether merely monitoring one’s safety behavior affects behavior and subsequent outcome measures. Prior research suggests that self-monitoring of psychopathological symptoms in treatment decreases anxiety and negative behavior, and increases positive behavior and approach (see Craske & Tsao, 1999). To eliminate the potential influence of safety behavior monitoring, the present study included an additional control condition, in which participants did nothing between the pre- and post-test. Inclusion of a no- monitoring control condition made it possible to isolate the effect of the checking behavior manipulation from potential monitoring effects. Therefore, contrary to Deacon and Maack (2008) and Olatunji et al. (2011), we did not include week-long baseline periods before and after the checking behavior manipulation, but only used a pre- and post-test. It was hypothesized that compared to the monitor and control group, participants in the experimental group would show a pre- to post-test increase in OCD-related cognitions about the importance of checking, the perceived likelihood and severity of a catastrophe (i.e., threat overestimation), and general obsessive beliefs about inflated responsibility and exaggerated threat perceptions. Based on previous findings of Deacon and Maack (2008) and Olatunji et al. (2011) it