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Experimental manipulation of beliefs about the importance of thoughts and the effect on an aggressive impulse
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 May 2020
Abstract
Background:
Cognitive models of obsessive-compulsive disorder attribute a causal role to maladaptive beliefs.
Aims:
To test this hypothesis, we manipulated Overimportance of Thoughts (OT) beliefs and experimentally evaluated their effect on the response to an induced aggressive impulse.
Method:
Eighty-five participants completed a battery of self-report instruments assessing obsession symptoms, thought control, affectivity and obsessive beliefs, and were then randomly assigned to two conditions. In the experimental condition participants read a scientific abstract on the importance of thought control whilst those in the control condition read a neutral abstract. All participants identified a loved person and imagined feeling the impulse to stab this person, then completed again OT beliefs measures (Overimportance of Thought, Moral-Thought Action Fusion and Thought Action Fusion Likelihood).
Results:
The Moral component of the Thought Action Fusion was reduced by reading a brief text about the possibility and desirability of thought control. However, experimentally induced changes in beliefs did not yield differences in the intrusiveness of the aggressive impulse.
Conclusions:
Some beliefs can be modified through a single session in which information similar to what could be obtained in quotidian life is provided.
Keywords
- Type
- Brief Clinical Report
- Information
- Copyright
- © British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies 2020
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Jiménez-Ros et al. supplementary material
Jiménez-Ros et al. supplementary material
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