Studies indicate high levels of thought-action fusion (TAF) in OCD. The current study aimed to determine if people with OCD evaluate others’ thoughts the same way as their own, as existing measures do not test for this distinction. Forty-two non-anxious, 40 OCD, and 41 socially anxious participants completed self-report and behavioral measures of thought-action fusion. Findings indicated that self-report measures of TAF, but not behavioral ones, indicate that people with SAD as well as those with OCD evaluate their own thoughts as more significant/dangerous than they do others’ thoughts. Moreover, although the SAD and OCD groups had similarly elevated scores on the total self-report TAF Scale, analyses of subscales indicated that relative to the other groups, OCD participants had higher scores on the likelihood subscales of the measure. These results were partially supported by the behavioral measure of TAF as well. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the TAF bias in both OCD and other disorders.
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