Fear of criticism is not specific to obsessive-compulsive disorder.

An attempt was made to replicate an earlier finding of a greater sensitivity to fear of criticism by obsessive-compulsives, compared to simple phobics. Two additional comparison groups were included. agoraphobics with panic attacks and social phobics. Results indicated that although obsessivecompulsives did score higher than simple phobics on a measure of fear of criticism, they could not be distinguished from agoraphobics or social phobics. This suggests that theories hypothesizing a selective association between fear of criticism and the development of obsessive-compulsive disorder may be invalid.