Black-and-white thinking and obsessions: very strong first-degree thinking

To relativize events, you need context. Those who lack that ability often get stuck in their first thought or conviction. We call that very strong first-degree thinking.

Very strong first-degree thinking

To relativize events, you need context. Those who lack that ability often get stuck in their first thought or conviction. We call that very strong first-degree thinking.

It's a continuum: from rigid convictions, to obsessive thoughts, to psychotic experiences, and ultimately schizophrenia.

Rigidity and fixed beliefs

At a very strong first-degree thinking, the first interpretation is repeatedly confirmed. Examples:

Someone who learned in his youth that "women cannot be trusted" later sees every problem in relationships as proof of that idea.
In extreme form, this leads to movements like the incels: men who reinterpret disappointments in relationships as proof that all women are bad or manipulative.
Religious beliefs can also become rigid in this way: "we have the truth, the rest of the world does not." Every conflict with non-believers thus becomes a confirmation of being right.

From rigidity to obsessive thoughts

If rigidity gets stronger, obsessive thoughts arise. Examples:

Being convinced that you would incite someone to stick their fingers into a power outlet during a youth weekend, which makes you not dare to go at all anymore.
Being convinced that a colleague is committing fraud; every small detail seems to confirm that suspicion.
Being convinced that your partner is cheating.
Being convinced that you have a serious illness (hypochondria).
Being convinced that you are too heavy, which can lead to anorexia.
Mysophobia and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

To Psychosis and Schizophrenia

When the compulsion gets too strong, reality itself can begin to distort.

Senses are largely context-dependent. When that system is disrupted, sounds, images or smells can be misinterpreted.
In the beginning, one sometimes still realizes that this is not real.
Gradually, that distinction blurs.
When the distortion becomes permanent, we speak of schizophrenia.

This fits research on the predictive brain. Fletcher and Frith (2009) explain delusions and hallucinations as a derailment in weighing expectation against what the senses bring in.² The brain then relies too much on its own expectations and too little on the situation. Chance events thus acquire a meaning they do not have.

Liddle and Liddle (2022) regard this imprecise prediction as the core of classical schizophrenia.³ Of all conditions, the evidence for such a mechanism is most developed here. That context processing is its cause, however, remains a hypothesis.⁴

Summary

Very strong first-degree thinking can therefore lead to a sliding scale: from rigid convictions → to obsessive thoughts → to psychosis → and ultimately schizophrenia.

The common factor is the lack of context sensitivity, which causes someone to get stuck further and further in a one-sided interpretation of reality.

References

Fradkin, I., Adams, R. A., Parr, T., Roiser, J. P., & Huppert, J. D. (2020). Searching for an anchor in an unpredictable world: A computational model of obsessive compulsive disorder. Psychological Review, 127(5), 672–699. doi:10.1037/rev0000188 — PubMed 32105115
Fletcher, P. C., & Frith, C. D. (2009). Perceiving is believing: a Bayesian approach to explaining the positive symptoms of schizophrenia. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(1), 48–58. doi:10.1038/nrn2536 — PubMed 19050712
Liddle, P. F., & Liddle, E. B. (2022). Imprecise predictive coding is at the core of classical schizophrenia. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 16, 818711. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2022.818711 — PubMed 35308615
Thomeer, K., & Vermeulen, P. (2026). Tussen de regels lezen: contextverwerking en psychische kwetsbaarheid. In-Mind, 02/2026. In-Mind