Thought-action fusion
Thought-Action Fusion is the tendency for individuals to assume that certain thoughts either increase the likelihood of catastrophic events or imply the immorality of their character.
In more technical terms, TAF is a polyseme defining false beliefs or self-confusing mind wandering about a biased and painful association/fusion between subjects' spontaneous thoughts and imaginary latent egodystonic desires or magical-thinking capabilities. These imaginary latent egodystonic desires or magical-thinking capabilities generally express harmful actions/behaviours that subjects appraise as highly possible, even though they have never existed so far.
Causes
The main causes of TAF are hold false beliefs that mind-wandering episodes involving cognitive/interpretation biases have generated, from specific patterns of intrusive thoughts. Besides, a high level of negative affectivity is a mediator in the statistical relations between TAF and the existence of psychological pains, or some mental disorders.Examples
An ADAA webinar highlighted several examples of TAF, such as:| Intrusive thoughts | Cognitive biases | False beliefs |
| Driving is exciting, but anyone can run down pedestrians. | This terrible thought is definitively a sign. | I am losing control; I am going to run over a pedestrian anytime... |
| My sharp knife could kill a baby. | This horrific thought is almost surely revealing. | I am probably going to kill my child in the near future... |
Categories
The two main categories of TAF are the:- Likelihood TAF, i.e. anxious and false beliefs assuming that specific intrusive thoughts would trigger the harmful events in the future;
- Moral TAF, i.e. uncertainty-evoking and false beliefs that specific intrusive thoughts about religiously or ethically/morally inappropriate behaviours, are as reprehensible or shameful as actually performing the intrusive thoughts' content.