Conceptualized-self and depression symptoms among university students: Mediating role of cognitive fusion Sadia Noureen 1 & Sadia Malik 1 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a unified behavioral change model which accounts Bpsychological inflexibility^ as a base or exacerbation of psychological distress. However, the substantive theoretical rational of ACT requires empirical investigation. Therefore, present study empirically examined the two components of psychological inflexibility, conceptualized- self and cognitive fusion, in relation with depression. Two hundred university students (men = 100, women = 100), aged between 19 to 32 years, participated in the study by completing paper and pencil survey. Study results revealed conceptualized-self (inadequate-self, hated-self and reassuring-self) as significant predictor of depression. Moreover, study results demonstrated the cognitive fusion as a mediator between critical-self (inadequate-self and hated-self) and depression while as a suppressor between reassuring-self and depression. Study findings suggest that student’ s conceptualized-self and cognitive fusion makes them psychologically inflexible which exacerbate the depression symptoms. Keywords Acceptance and commitment therapy . Inadequate-self . Hated-self . Reassuring-self . Cognitive fusion . Depression Introduction The aim of the study was to empirically investigate the two processes of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT); conceptualized-self and cognitive fusion. ACT based on func- tional contextualism philosophy augmented by Relational Frame Theory (RFT). According to functional contextualism, humans learn and develop higher cognitions through creating links between different things or events in a context. Human mind makes links between stimuli in a disposed context and then use, manipulate, respond and transform these links and their function in any other context by using derived meanings of stimuli, its history, function, and purpose. By this functional contextualism, humans learn language, higher cognition (Fletcher and Hayes 2005) and experience perceptual function of any object even when it is not actually present (McHugh et al. 2004). Though, functional contextualism is useful for language development and higher cognition, however, it also induce detrimental effects on human mental health. ACT termed this counterproductive side of functional contextualism as psychological inflexibility. It is inflexible or rigid thinking patterns which human mind developed ac- cording to life experiences, and these particular established thinking patterns could never be returned to its zero strength. ACT accounts this psychological inflexibility for psychopath- ological state as any learned negative thought or cognitive relation could not be fully eliminate, and this inability results in psychological distress (Hayes et al. 1999). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT; Hayes et al. 1999) is a part of third wave of cognitive and behavioral ther- apies (Hayes et al. 2006), which has specified six psychopath- ological processes to explain psychological distress. These six psychopathological processes revolve around a single core concept; Bpsychological inflexibility^ (Hayes et al. 2012). Following are the six interrelated processes of psychological inflexibility. (1) Experiential avoidance; it is an avoidant be- havior used to alter unwanted private experiences (i.e. mem- ories, emotions, thoughts, body sensations and behavioral consequences) which might causes distress. Though it pro- vides short-term relief, however, unnecessary efforts to con- trol undesired internal events, consequently, cause rigid and inflexible mental or behavioral approach (Hayes et al, 1996; Kashdan et al. 2006). (2) Cognitive fusion; it occurs when * Sadia Noureen sadianouren@gmail.com Sadia Malik drsadiamalik13@gmail.com 1 Department of Psychology, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Pakistan Current Psychology https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00450-3