Investigators:

Dr. Julia Gallegos-Guajardo, University of Monterrey, Dr. Noah Berman, The College of the Holy Cross, Dr. Manuel Ramirez III and Dr. Gladys Valdez, The University of Texas at Austin, and Dr. Jonathan Abramowitz, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,I agree that we should just have the investigators names and their university affiliations.

 

Project Description:

At this point in time data collection has been completed in both countries–.Mexico and United States. Participants are college students at the University of Monterrey and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Each participant was administered a packet of measures that evaluated: emotional regulation processes such as cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, OCD symptoms in the four dimensions of (1) contamination, (2) responsibility for harm and mistakes, (3) incompleteness and symmetry, and (4) unacceptable (taboo thoughts), and the cultural measures assessing family attitudes, family environment and religiosity.

Another goal of the research project is to compile a comprehensive literature review related to OCD, emotional regulation and culture.  This annotated list of references is a comprehensive database is being developed through a systematic approach of conducting literature searches, gathering and organizing the full-texts of the selected literature, and the creation of a literature search matrix, which includes the information of each study by section: authors, references, topic/category, objectives, research design, participants, measures used, and principal findings. This aspect of the project is still in process. Future goals of the project are to continue to update the OCD, Emotional Regulation and Culture Bibliography, and the completion  of three manuscripts on the following topics:

Manuscript 1. Relationship of cross-national differences on cultural and religious values to OCD symptoms and emotional regulation.

Manuscript 2. Relationship of cultural values and religiosity differences to severity of symptoms in the four OCD symptom dimensions among Mexican and Caucasian Americans.

Manuscript 3. Identification of differences between Mexicans and Caucasian Americans in emotional regulation processes and relationship of these differences to cultural and religious values.

 

Support for the Project:

This project has received support from the Research Division at Universidad de Monterrey, and a non-for-profit organization in Mexico, Fundacion Montemayor.

In 2017 Dr. Gallegos-Guajardo was awarded a Matias Romero Visiting Scholar Fellowship. The Matías Romero Visiting Scholars Program was originally created in 2003 as the Matías Romero Chair in Mexican Studies through an educational and research cooperation agreement between the Ministry of Foreign Relations in Mexico and UT Austin. Its purpose is to promote cooperation between distinguished Mexicans from the public and private sectors, as well as from academia and faculty members at UT Austin in order, to foster greater understanding of Mexican culture and society. This program is sponsored by the Mexican Center at the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (LLILAS) whose support made it possible for Dr. Gallegos-Guajardo to collaborate  with Dr. Ramirez and his research team in the Multicultural Lab at UT during two visits, one in April 2018, and another one in July 2018.