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Alexithymia Is a Key Mediator of the Relationship Between Magical Thinking and Empathy

Thought action fusion (TAF), whereby internal thoughts are perceived to exert equivalent effects to external actions, is a form of magical thinking. Psychiatric disorders associated with TAF (e.g. schizophrenia; obsessive compulsive disorder) can feature atypical social cognition. We explored relati...

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Autores principales: Eddy, Clare M., Hansen, Peter C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8421603/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34504448
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.719961
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author Eddy, Clare M.
Hansen, Peter C.
author_facet Eddy, Clare M.
Hansen, Peter C.
author_sort Eddy, Clare M.
collection PubMed
description Thought action fusion (TAF), whereby internal thoughts are perceived to exert equivalent effects to external actions, is a form of magical thinking. Psychiatric disorders associated with TAF (e.g. schizophrenia; obsessive compulsive disorder) can feature atypical social cognition. We explored relationships between TAF and empathy in 273 healthy young adults. TAF was directly correlated with higher personal distress, but not perspective taking, fantasy or empathic concern. TAF moral (the belief that thinking about an action/behaviour is morally equivalent to actually performing that behaviour) was predicted by emotion contagion, alexithymia and need for closure. TAF likelihood (the belief that simply having a thought about an event makes that event more likely to occur) was predicted by personal distress, sense of agency and alexithymia. Both cognitive (TAF and negative sense of agency) and emotional (emotion contagion, alexithymia) factors contributed to personal distress. TAF, negative sense of agency and personal distress mediated the effect of emotion contagion on alexithymia. Our findings reveal complex relationships between emotional processes and TAF, shedding further light on the social cognitive profile of disorders associated with magical thinking. Furthermore, they emphasise the potential importance of alexithymia and emotion contagion as mediators or potential risk factors in the development of psychiatric symptoms linked to TAF, such as intrusive thoughts about harm to others.
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spelling pubmed-84216032021-09-08 Alexithymia Is a Key Mediator of the Relationship Between Magical Thinking and Empathy Eddy, Clare M. Hansen, Peter C. Front Psychiatry Psychiatry Thought action fusion (TAF), whereby internal thoughts are perceived to exert equivalent effects to external actions, is a form of magical thinking. Psychiatric disorders associated with TAF (e.g. schizophrenia; obsessive compulsive disorder) can feature atypical social cognition. We explored relationships between TAF and empathy in 273 healthy young adults. TAF was directly correlated with higher personal distress, but not perspective taking, fantasy or empathic concern. TAF moral (the belief that thinking about an action/behaviour is morally equivalent to actually performing that behaviour) was predicted by emotion contagion, alexithymia and need for closure. TAF likelihood (the belief that simply having a thought about an event makes that event more likely to occur) was predicted by personal distress, sense of agency and alexithymia. Both cognitive (TAF and negative sense of agency) and emotional (emotion contagion, alexithymia) factors contributed to personal distress. TAF, negative sense of agency and personal distress mediated the effect of emotion contagion on alexithymia. Our findings reveal complex relationships between emotional processes and TAF, shedding further light on the social cognitive profile of disorders associated with magical thinking. Furthermore, they emphasise the potential importance of alexithymia and emotion contagion as mediators or potential risk factors in the development of psychiatric symptoms linked to TAF, such as intrusive thoughts about harm to others. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-08-24 /pmc/articles/PMC8421603/ /pubmed/34504448 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.719961 Text en Copyright © 2021 Eddy and Hansen. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychiatry
Eddy, Clare M.
Hansen, Peter C.
Alexithymia Is a Key Mediator of the Relationship Between Magical Thinking and Empathy
title Alexithymia Is a Key Mediator of the Relationship Between Magical Thinking and Empathy
title_full Alexithymia Is a Key Mediator of the Relationship Between Magical Thinking and Empathy
title_fullStr Alexithymia Is a Key Mediator of the Relationship Between Magical Thinking and Empathy
title_full_unstemmed Alexithymia Is a Key Mediator of the Relationship Between Magical Thinking and Empathy
title_short Alexithymia Is a Key Mediator of the Relationship Between Magical Thinking and Empathy
title_sort alexithymia is a key mediator of the relationship between magical thinking and empathy
topic Psychiatry
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8421603/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34504448
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.719961
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