Beyond the Myths: Understanding and Dispelling Misconceptions about Object Attachment and Hoarding Disorder
Advisor: Ms. Apra
Internship Location: Remote
Onsite Mentor: Dr. Lynna Tsou
The goal of my project is to discover common misconceptions people hold about object attachment and hoarding behaviors, and more importantly, to dispel them and provide a more accurate take on these behaviors. Object attachment and hoarding are often misunderstood in society and are frequently judged as plain laziness or irresponsibility. In fact, according to a large public survey by physician Alex Dresden, people are more likely to blame individuals for their hoarding behaviors rather than recognizing them as a mental health condition. This type of misunderstanding can increase stigma and discourage people from seeking support or treatment. To explore this issue, I will conduct a survey that examines what misconceptions people hold about object attachment and hoarding, and whether these opinions differ based on the sex, age, culture, and past personal experience of the participants. This will make it easier to identify where stigma comes from and allow misconceptions to be corrected in more targeted and effective ways. The results will then be analyzed to identify the most common misunderstandings among each category. Based on these findings, my project will include a section that clearly explains and corrects these misconceptions. This way, my project can educate its readers about object attachment and hoarding behaviors. This project aims to promote a more informed and empathetic understanding of object attachment and hoarding behaviors.
Project Blog
Week 0: Introduction to My Project
Hey everyone! I’m Richa, and welcome to my first Senior Project blog post. I’ll be honest, my first understanding of mental health came from comedy TV shows. I especially remember this one character, a lonely middle-aged man, who was a hoarder. Everything about him, like how he’d panic whenever anybody suggested cleaning out his room or how he’d push away anyone who got near his stuff, was treated like a complete joke. At the time, that’s all I thought hoarding was: a humorous, over-the-top mid-life crisis.
As I got older and learned more about mental health, I realized how narrow and inaccurate these TV portrayals really were. They didn’t reflect the real experiences of people who struggle with mental health disorders and instead reduced them to quirky, exaggerated behaviors. That’s what inspired me to focus my project on false impressions about hoarding and object attachment behaviors and, more importantly, on correcting them and providing a more accurate understanding.
For my project, I’ll be doing a survey to see what people believe about hoarding and whether factors like age, sex, culture, or personal experience influence those beliefs. Then, I’ll use the results to provide a clearer, more accurate explanation for hoarding and object attachment behaviors.
Over the next ten weeks, I’ll be posting updates about my research and what I’m learning. I’m excited to dive in and help people see hoarding behaviors in a more informed and compassionate way.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next blog post!
Week 1: Making the Survey
Hi everyone, welcome to the first week of my senior project!
This week, I was mainly focused on continuing my background research and making my survey. Honestly, I started with background research first because creating the survey felt really intimidating at the beginning. Even though I’d read through multiple studies and had a list of surveys from similar studies to use for inspiration, actually writing my own questions felt like a huge step. I figured I’d ease myself into the project and deal with the survey when I felt more ready.
Throughout the week, I read the novel Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Frost and Steketee, which helped me better understand why hoarding and object attachment behaviors happen in the first place. One of the biggest things the book explains is the difference between normal attachment to objects and hoarding. People often have emotional connections to certain items like stuffed animals or souvenirs, which is completely normal. However, when that connection spreads to almost any object, even everyday items, and begins to interfere with daily life, it becomes hoarding. People with hoarding disorder often struggle with decision-making, anxiety, and fear of loss. This book especially emphasized that hoarding is not laziness or messiness, but is a psychological disorder because it causes emotional distress and functional problems in daily life. I think this book is going to be especially useful for when I make my brochure focused on clearing up misconceptions about hoarding.
After my research, I started working on my survey. I was still a bit nervous about making the actual questions about misconceptions, because I wasn’t sure if I could make them clear or neutral enough. So I started out with the demographic questions first. For my project, I’ll be asking for the participant’s age, cultural background, biological sex, and past experience with hoarding. After finishing those, I felt more comfortable with the structure of my survey and moved on to the misconception questions. Writing those took a lot of careful thinking because I had to make sure everything was unbiased and easy to understand. Fortunately, I had help from my advisors, Ms. Apra and Dr. Tsou, as well as guidance from the surveys I had seen in similar studies.
Overall, this week helped me move from just having an idea to actually building the tools needed to carry out my study. Next week, I’ll be doing a pilot test of my survey with a small number of people to see if it needs any changes before I send it out to my participants.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for the next blog post!
Week 2: Finalizing the Survey
Hi everyone, welcome back to my senior project!
This week I continued reading and annotating Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things. These chapters went much deeper into how hoarding behaviors actually develop and why they can be so difficult for people to control. One of the biggest things I learned is that hoarding usually develops gradually over time rather than suddenly. The authors explain that many people start out keeping items for sentimental or practical reasons, but over time attachment can grow stronger and decision-making becomes harder. Eventually, the number of possessions can grow so much that it starts to interfere with daily life, by making living spaces harder to use or by creating stress in relationships.
Another important idea from the book discussed was the emotional meaning people attach to objects. Many items represent memories, relationships, or important moments in someone’s life. Because of this, throwing something away can feel like losing part of that memory or identity. The authors also talk about how people with hoarding disorder often struggle with decision-making and organization. Even simple choices about what to keep or throw can feel overwhelming, which can lead to avoiding those decisions entirely. This helps explain why hoarding is considered a psychological disorder rather than just messiness or laziness.
Alongside my reading, I also finished building my survey this week. Last week, I was struggling with the phrasing of a couple questions as well as my survey description, but this week, with some help from my advisors, I was able to make my survey ready for its pilot test. I will be giving the survey to about 15-20 participants and make final edits to my survey based on their feedback before sending it out to my real sample in a few weeks.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for next week’s update!
Post 4: Week Three: The Pilot Test
Hey everyone, welcome back to my senior project!
This week I conducted a pilot test for my survey with 10 people. I shared the survey with people I knew from different age groups and asked them to send it to a few of their friends as well. This helped me get feedback from people with different perspectives so I can make sure my survey is clear to everyone taking it instead of just some specific groups. The feedback I received was surprisingly very positive, so the survey didn’t need too many changes. Most participants said the questions were easy enough to understand. Because of this, I was able to conclude my pilot test smoothly, which means that my survey is now ready to be used for the actual study. To make the survey accessible to participants, I’ll be using a few different ways to distribute it. My internal advisor Ms. Apra will help by sending the survey to the teachers at BASIS, while I’ll be sharing it with the students. I will also be putting the survey link in the WhatsApp chats used by the parents of BASIS students. With these different parts of the BASIS community included, I should be able to get responses from a fairly diverse range of participants.
Alongside the pilot testing and preparation for participant recruitment, I also finished reading and annotating all of Stuff. The most important takeaway I got from this novel was about how complex hoarding behaviors really are, as well as how connected they are to anxiety and decision-making. I feel like I’ve been correcting misconceptions that I didn’t even realize I had about hoarding. These insights will be very useful when I start creating my educational brochure later in the project.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for next week’s blog!
Week 4: Participant Recruitment
Hey everyone, welcome back to my senior project!
This week I both sent out my survey to my participants and focused on expanding my research. I read and annotated the research article “Hoarding: A Community Health Problem” by Frost, which offered a broader perspective on how hoarding affects entire communities rather than just individuals. One of the main ideas the paper had was that hoarding creates serious safety risks like fire hazards and unsanitary living conditions. Hoarding can impact families, neighbors, and even public services, showing that it is not just a personal issue.
Reading this paper helped me better understand the real-world impact of hoarding. This article reinforces the idea that hoarding is a psychological disorder with real consequences, and far more complex that most people realize.
Alongside my research, I officially sent out my survey this week. I had my parents send the survey link to the BASIS parents WhatsApp chats, asked my internal advisor, Ms. Apra, to send it to BASIS teachers, and I personally sent it out to my classmates and students from other grades. By sharing it across these different groups, I’m hoping I’ll get responses from a wide range of ages and perspectives. Now that the survey is out, I’ll start drafting my research paper while waiting for responses to come in.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for next week’s blog!
Week 5: Understanding Stigma
Hey everyone, welcome back to my senior project!
This week I continued my survey data collection and dove deeper into my research. The article I read this week was “Understanding the Impact of Stigma on People with Mental Illness” by Corrigan and Watson. Although this paper is not directly related to hoarding or object attachment, it explains how misconceptions about mental disorders are created and why those ideas can be so hard to change.
The main idea from the article is that stigma is not just what people think about a topic, but also how they feel and act towards it. Basically, if someone has a wrong or oversimplified belief about a mental health condition, that can easily turn judgement and unfair treatment. This is why misconceptions about mental disorders are considered harmful and need to be cleared up.
Something else that stood out to me is how stigma can stop people from getting help. If someone feels judged, it’s less likely that they will want to talk about what they are going through. Even though this article wasn’t specifically about hoarding behaviors, I could still clearly connect it to my project. This article helped me understand that clearing up misconceptions is a more complex procedure than I assumed, and is not just about giving correct information, but also about reducing stigma. This is especially important for the brochure I am creating, since I want it not only to educate people but also make them more aware of how their assumptions can affect others.
In terms of my own research, I also made progress with the survey I sent out last week. So far, I have received more than my targeted amount of 50 responses, and am hoping to gather even more data before the survey closes on Sunday. While waiting for responses, I’ve started drafting the background section of my research paper, and will continue to work on the paper until it’s time to analyze my collected data.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
Week 6: Wrapping up Data Collection and Starting Analysis
Hey everyone, welcome back to my senior project!
This week was a pretty big one because my survey officially closed on Sunday, March 29th! In total, I ended up with 60 responses, which is thankfully more than I originally aimed for, so now I’ve got a solid amount of data to work with.
Now that the survey is closed, I’ve started organizing the responses. I already have all of the responses sorted based on demographic factors like age, sex, ethnicity, and prior experience. This will make it easier to compare how the different groups within my sample think about hoarding and object attachment. I haven’t fully finished analyzing everything yet, but I’ve started looking for patterns and trends within the responses.
I also made progress on my final research paper and finished writing a rough draft of the background section. For now, I’m going to keep working on the paper while continuing my data analysis. As for my brochure, I’m planning to start once I clearly identify the most common misconceptions my participants hold, so I can make it as targeted and accurate as possible.
For my research this week, I read “Conceptualizing Stigma” by Link and Phelan. This article builds on the idea that stigma is more than just negative thinking, but is instead a result of a step-by-step process. First, people label any differences they see in others, whether it be a physical characteristic or an emotional or mental quality. Next, they attach stereotypes to those labels, separating people into “us” versus “them”. This separation finally leads to discrimination.
Another idea that this article discussed was that while stigma stems from individual opinion, the power and social structures within society can cause these ideas to have real consequences. For example, if someone with hoarding behaviors is labeled as lazy or irresponsible, people may be less willing to help them or take their situation seriously. This can lead to them not getting proper treatment or support. In more extreme cases, it can affect housing situations and relationships. These kinds of outcomes show how harmful misconceptions can be if not corrected.
Like last week’s article, this article was also not specifically about hoarding, but it was still very useful for me to read. It helped me better understand the impact of the misconceptions I am studying and why it is so important to correct them before they can turn into stigma.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
Week 7: Starting Data Analysis
Hey everyone, welcome back to my senior project!
This week, I focused on working with the data I collected from my survey. Since my survey is now closed, I started going through the responses more carefully and removed any that weren’t consistent to ensure the accuracy of my data.
I’m already starting to notice some interesting trends. For example, responses from teens seem a lot more varied compared to responses from other age groups. My guess is that this might be because teens are still forming their opinions on topics like this, and may not have as much exposure to strong societal views or misconceptions yet. On the other hand, older participants may have more fixed ideas based on what they’ve seen or heard over time, which could explain why their responses are more similar.
Another pattern I’m seeing is that people who have had prior experience or exposure to hoarding or object attachment tend to agree less with the misconception statements. This lines up with my hypothesis, since personal experience can lead to a better understanding of how complex these behaviors actually are. I still need to look more into other factors like sex and ethnicity, so I’ll be continuing my analysis next week.
For my research this week, I read “The Economic and Social Burden of Compulsive Hoarding” by Tolin, Frost, Steketee, and Fitch, and also read about a third of Frost’s book Buried in Treasures. Both of these sources focus on the real-world impact of hoarding, but in slightly different ways. The articles looked more at the larger scale effects, like financial strain, safety risks, and impacts on communities and public services. On the other hand, Buried in Treasures focused more on the personal and psychological side of hoarding, as well as strategies for managing these behaviors. Compared to Frost’s earlier work, which focused more on defining hoarding, these sources explained that by showing both personal experience and the broader social impact of hoarding.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
Week 8: Statistical Analysis and New Findings!
Hey everyone, welcome back to my senior project!
This week I moved further into analyzing my data and started running tests to see if the patterns I was noticing were statistically significant. After organizing all my data, I conducted a t-test to see if there was a difference in overall agreement with hoarding misconceptions between males and females.
To my surprise, there was no significant difference, which went against my original hypothesis. I had expected females to agree less with misconceptions than males, because according to one of the studies I read (“Are women more empathetic than men? Questionnaire and EEG estimations of sex/gender differences in empathic ability” by Chenyu Pang et al.), women were proven to show higher levels of empathy than men. However, my results suggest that sex does not play as big of a role in perception of hoarding as I initially thought.
I also conducted a one-way ANOVA to compare overall hoarding perceptions across the different age groups. The results showed that there was a significant difference between the groups, but to find out where those differences were, I had to run a post hoc test. I found that the biggest difference was between adults and older adults, with older adults being more likely to agree with misconceptions about hoarding. One possible reason for this could be that older generations may have grown up with less awareness around mental health, so behaviors like hoarding might be more likely to be seen as personal choices rather than psychological conditions.
The teen group however did not show a significant difference compared to other groups. Last week I had mentioned how teenagers are still forming opinions and may not have strong or fixed beliefs yet, which helps explain why their level of agreement with hoarding misconceptions is not reliably higher or lower than the other age groups. Right now, I’ve started analyzing differences between ethnicities and kinds of past experience, and plan to finish that by the end of this week.
For my research this week, I continued reading Buried in Treasures by Frost. The next part of the book focused on providing strategies for understanding and addressing hoarding behaviors. Now that I’m almost done analyzing all of my sources, I have started writing the literature review section of my research paper.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
Week 9: Wrapping Up Data Analysis
Hey everyone, welcome back to my senior project!
This is the second-to-last week of the senior project, so things have started to come to a close. Last week, I analyzed overall agreement with misconceptions, but this week I focused my data analysis on the three categories of misconceptions my survey questions were about: seeing hoarding as immaturity, as messiness, or as instability.
For age groups, there wasn’t a significant difference for immaturity or instability, but there was more messiness. After running a post hoc test, I found that adults were less likely to agree with the “messiness” misconception, while older adults were the most likely to agree with it. Across all age groups though, the one thing in common is that they agreed the most with hoarding being related to mental instability.
For biological sex, there were no significant differences at all across any of the three categories. Both males and females were most likely to agree with hoarding being linked to instability and least likely to agree with hoarding being linked to messiness or laziness. This unfortunately didn’t support my hypothesis that females would agree less with misconceptions than males.
For past experience, there was a significant difference when it came to seeing hoarding as immaturity, but not for the other two categories. After a post-hoc test, I found that people who both experienced hoarding themselves and know of others who experienced it agreed least with the misconception, while people who know of others who experienced hoarding agreed most. Overall, people across different experience levels were most likely to agree with immaturity or instability.
Outside of data analysis, I finished my literature review, and will now be moving on to the next section of my paper. I also started working on my brochure now that I’ve identified the most common misconceptions among my participants. I also finished reading Buried in Treasures, which was my last source. Overall, my research covered a mix of topics like public perceptions of hoarding, how stigma forms, and the psychological and emotional factors behind object attachment. I feel like putting all this together has given me the information I hope to give to others through my project.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
Week 10: Final Post!
Hey everyone, welcome back to my senior project!
This week honestly felt like the final stretch of a race, where I’m trying to put all my energy into sprinting towards the finish line. Most of my time this week has gone into working on all of my final products for the project, including my research paper, educational brochure, research poster, and presentation slides for the senior symposium next week.
I’ve also continued reviewing my data and organizing my final conclusions. According to my results, the most common misconception people held about hoarding was that it is a result of mental instability, while the least common misconception was that hoarding is a result of messiness. Something else interesting I found is that age and ethnicity showed the biggest differences in levels of agreement with misconceptions about hoarding, while biological sex did not seem to have a major impact.
Looking back on this project, I think one of the most important things I learned is just how much stigma shapes the way people view behaviors they don’t fully understand. Through both my research and survey data, I was able to see how strongly stereotypes influence perception, which then became a big part of why creating the brochure became so important to me. I wanted to create something that directly addresses these stereotypes and encourages a more empathetic perspective.
At this point, I’m mostly focused on refining everything and preparing to present my work at the symposium. It’s honestly surreal seeing this project finally come together after so many weeks of endless research, data collection, analysis, and writing.
Thanks for following along with my project journey!