Pathological skin picking is a repetitive picking of the skin that leads to tissue damages and to significant distress. One of the most important aspects of skin picking is inability to inhibit one's notorious behavior; however, very few studies have examined whether the general impulsiveness underlies this disorder.

The aim of the current study was to investigate whether the PSP sufferers exhibit a tendency to be more reactive in general and represent the impulsive reaction style characterized by faster response and incorrection rely on the tendency to react to irrelevant stimuli rather than missing the correct reaction.

30 students suffering from pathological skin picking and 30 healthy controls were administered the Moroń Clock Test which allows to examine the basic mechanisms of information selection. The participants’ task was to search for, among the various distractors, the one predefined icon as quickly and as correctly as possible.

The individuals with pathological skin picking did not differ from healthy controls neither in the speed of signal detection nor in the number of ‘false - alarms’ being made; however, skin picking sufferers demonstrated the pattern of signal detection which seems to be characteristic of individuals with high level of anxiety. At the very beginning of the task they performed slowly and carelessly but gradually improved their performance when the task became more familiar to them.

The results demonstrate that individuals with pathological skin picking do not show an impulsive reaction style.