Excessive Object Attachment in Hoarding Disorder: Examining the Role of Interpersonal Functioning
Abstract
Excessive attachment towards possessions can be maladaptive because it can lead individuals to excessively acquire and save objects. Little is known about how attachment to objects develops and changes over time; however, interpersonal factors have been theorized to play a role. The current study examined whether interpersonal factors, specifically interpersonal attachment style and empathy, moderate changes in object attachment over time. A total of 145 participants with excessive acquiring and discarding difficulties rated their level of attachment to a novel object just after receiving it, and 1 week later. Participants also completed measures of interpersonal anxious attachment and interpersonal functioning. We found that changes in object attachment over time were moderated by interpersonal anxious attachment. Also, our findings suggested that individuals with hoarding problems are likely not impaired in their ability to empathize with others, but rather have difficulty displaying empathy in tense social situations and also have more empathy for fictional characters. Further, greater discomfort in tense social situations and greater empathy for fictional characters interacted to predict greater object attachment. Taken together, these findings indicate that individuals with an interpersonal anxious attachment style may be those at risk of forming greater attachments to objects over time. A learning history that includes inconsistent support from caregivers may result in…
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Public health measures such as lockdowns and social distancing may have introduced additional interpersonal stressors, which are strongly associated with hoarding.
“Public health measures such as lockdowns and social distancing may have introduced additional interpersonal stressors, which are also strongly associated with hoarding (e.g., David et al., 2021; Grisham et al., 2018; Norberg et al., 2020).”
From Why did all the toilet paper disappear? Distinguishing between panic buying and hoarding during COVID-19 (2021) · cites this paper as David et al., 2021
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“When people with clinically-relevant hoarding tendencies were endowed with a human-like tea holder or box of tea, hoarding tendencies predicted attachment to items, which grew over a week, more so for people with anxious attachments (David et al., 2021).”
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- Authors
- David, J., Aluh, D. O., Blonner, M., & Norberg, M. M.
- Affiliations
- Macquarie University (AU)
- University of Nigeria (NG)
- Corresponding author
- Norberg, Melissa M.
- Venue
- Behavior Therapy
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2021-09
- Volume
- 52
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 1226-1236
- ISSN
- 0005-7894 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3133272381
- Cited by
- 16
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 3
- FWCI
- 2.05
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Behavior Therapy (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- International OCD Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorders
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Perfectionism, Procrastination, Anxiety Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Keywords
- hoarding disorder, attachment to objects, attachment anxiety, empathy, social discomfort, interpersonal functioning, caregiver support, compensatory behavior
- MeSH terms
- Hoarding Disorder, Anxiety, Empathy, Humans, Object Attachment, Hoarding
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