Thought-Action Fusion, Scrupulosity and Afterlife Beliefs in Young Adults
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32350/apr.32.02Keywords:
Afterlife Belief, Mediation, Scrupulosity, Thought-Action FusionAbstract
The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between thought-action fusion and scrupulosity in young adults while investigating the mediating role of afterlife beliefs. The sample comprised of (N = 200) young adults, including men (n = 87) and women (n = 113). All the participants were Muslims with their age ranging between 18-35. To measure the constructs, Afterlife Belief Scale for Muslims, Penn Inventory of Scrupulosity-Revised, and Thought-Action Fusion Scale were used. The study data was analysed using SPSS and PROCESS Macro. Correlation analysis depicted that thought-action fusion and afterlife belief were significantly positively correlated with scrupulosity. Positive afterlife belief had a non-significant correlation with thought-action fusion. Mediation analysis confirmed the mediating role of afterlife belief in the relationship between thought-action fusion and scrupulosity. The present study has significant implications in the clinical and counselling field. The practitioners can consider a person’s afterlife belief system while dealing with the religious manifestations of OCD and scrupulosity; hence they can apply more effective therapeutic interventions according to the mediation model.
Downloads
References
Abdel-Khalek, A. M. (2014). Religiosity and well-being in a Muslim context. In C. Kim-Prieto (Ed.), Religion and spirituality across cultures (pp. 71–85). Springer Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8950-9_4
Abramowitz, J. S. (2008). Treatment of scrupulous obsessions and compulsions using exposure and response prevention: A case report. Cognitive and Behavioural Practice, 8(1), 79-85. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1077-7229(01)80046-8
Abramowitz, J. S., & Deacon, B. J. (2006). Psychometric properties and construct validity of the obsessive-compulsive inventory-revised: Replication and extension with a clinical sample. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 20(8), 1016–1035. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2006.03.001
Altin, M. U. (2009). A cross cultural investigation of obsessive-compulsive symptomatology: The role of religiosity and religious affiliation [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. Middle East Technical University, Turkey.
Altin, M., & Gençöz, T. (2011). How does thought-action fusion relate to responsibility attitudes and thought suppression to aggravate the obsessive-compulsive symptoms? Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 39(1), 99–114. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1352465810000524
Amjad, A. (2014). Death anxiety as a function of age and religiosity. Journal of Applied Environmental and Biological Sciences, 4(9), 333–341.
Benore, E. R., & Park, C. L. (2004). Invited essay: Death specific religious beliefs and bereavement: Belief in an afterlife and continued attachment. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 14(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327582ijpr1401_1
Flannelly, K. J., Ellison, C. G., Galek, K., & Koenig, H. G. (2008). Beliefs about life after death, psychiatric symptomolgy and cognitive theories of psychopathology. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 36, 94–103. https://doi.org/10.1177/009164710803600202
Ghayas, S., & Batool, S. S. (2016). Construction and validation of afterlife belief scale for Muslims. Journal of Religion and Health, 56, 861–875. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-016-0258-z
Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. Guilford Press.
Hezel, D. M., Stewart, S. E., Riemann, B. C., & McNally, R. J. (2019). Clarifying the thoughtaction fusion bias in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, 20, 75–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jocrd.2017.10.004
Hood, R. W., Hill, P. C., & Williamson, W. P. (2005). The psychology of religious fundamentalism. Guilford Press.
Kabakcı, E., Demir, B., Demirel, H., & Şevik, A. E. (2008). Thought–action fusion: Is it present in schizophrenia? Behaviour Change, 25(3), 169–177. https://doi.org/10.1375/bech.25.3.169
Lee, E. B., Barney, J. L., Twohig, M. P., Lensegrav-Benson, T., & Quakenbush, B. (2020). Obsessive compulsive disorder and thought action fusion: Relationships with eating disorder outcomes. Eating Behaviors, 37, Article e101386. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eatbeh.2020.101386
Lee, H. J., Cougle, J. R., & Telch, M. J. (2005). Thought–action fusion and its relationship to schizotypy and OCD symptoms. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 43(1), 29–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2003.11.002
Maududi, S. A. (1984). Islam: Its meaning and message. In M. T. Quraishi (Ed.), Islam: A way of life and a movement (pp. 9–33). American Trust Publications.
Miller, C. H., & Hedges, D. W. (2008). Scrupulosity disorder: An overview and introductory analysis. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 22(6), 1042–1058. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2007.11.004
Muris, P., Meesters, C., & Rassin, E. (2001). Thought-action fusion and anxiety disorder symptoms in normal adolescents. Behavior Research and Therapy, 39, 843–852. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0005-7967(00)00077-2
Nelson, E. A., Abramowitz, J. S., Whiteside, S. P., & Deacon, B. J. (2006). Scrupulosity in patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder: Relationship to clinical and cognitive phenomena. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 20, 1071–1086. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2006.02.001
Noureen, S. (2017). Relationship between religiosity and psychopathological symptomology: Role of God imagery and afterlife belief among university students [Unpublished master’s thesis]. University of Sargodha, Pakistan.
Obayashi, H. (1992). Death and afterlife: Perspective of world religions. Greenwood Press.
Olatunji, B. O., Abramowitz, J. S., Williams, N. L., Connolly, K. M., & Lohr, J. M. (2007). Scrupulosity and obsessive-compulsive symptoms: Confirmatory factor analysis and validity of the Penn Inventory of Scrupulosity. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 21(6), 771–787. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2006.12.002
Pearson, A. M. (1998). Hinduism. In J. C. Johnson & M. G. McGee (Eds.), How different religions view death and afterlife. (pp. 109–131). The Charles Press.
Rassin, E., & Koster, E. (2003). The correlation between thought-action fusion and religiosity in a normal sample. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 41, 361–368. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0005-7967(02)00096-7
Reuman, L., Buchholz, J., Blakey, S., & Abramowitz, J. S. (2017). Uncertain and fused: Uognitive fusion, thought-action fusion, and the intolerance of uncertainty as predictors of obsessive-compulsive symptom dimensions. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 31(3), 191–203. https://doi.org/10.1891/0889-8391.31.3.191
Reynolds, F. E. (1992). Death as threat, death as achievement: Buddhist perspectives with particular reference to the Theravada tradition. In H. Obayashi (Ed.), Death and afterlife (pp. 157–167). Greenwood Press.
Salkovskis, P. M. (1985). Obsessional-compulsive problems: A cognitive-behavioural analysis. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 23(5), 571–583. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(85)90105-6
Shafran, R., & Rachman, S. (2004). Thought-action fusion: A review. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 35(2), 87–107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbtep.2004.04.002
Shafran, R., Thordarson, D. S., & Rachman, S. (1996). Thought-action fusion in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 10, 379–391. https://doi.org/10.1016/0887-6185(96)00018-7
Simkus, J. (2024, January 22). Scrupulosity OCD: When religious or moral beliefs become OCD. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/scrupulosity-ocd-when-religious-or-moral-beliefs-become-ocd.html
Thompson-Hollands, J., Farchione, T. J., & Barlow, D. H. (2013). Thought-action fusion across anxiety disorder diagnoses: Specificity and treatment effects. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 201(5), Article e407. https://doi.org/10.1097/NMD.0b013e31828e102c
Williams, A. D., Lau, G., & Grisham, J. R. (2013). Thought-action fusion as a mediator of religiosity and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 44(2), 207–212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbtep.2012.09.004
Witzig, T. F. (2005). Obsessional beliefs, religious beliefs, and scrupulosity among fundamental protestant Christians. Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders, 2(3), 331–337. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jocrd.2013.06.002
Yorulmaz, O., Karanci, A. N., Bastug, B., Kisa, C., & Goka, E. (2008). Responsibility, thought action fusion, and thought suppression in Turkish patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 64(3), 308–317. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20460
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
APR follows an open-access publishing policy and full text of all published articles is available free, immediately upon publication of an issue. The journal’s contents are published and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0) license. Thus, the work submitted to the journal implies that it is original, unpublished work of the authors (neither published previously nor accepted/under consideration for publication elsewhere). On acceptance of a manuscript for publication, a corresponding author on the behalf of all co-authors of the manuscript will sign and submit a completed the Copyright and Author Consent Form.

