Anchoring errors in clinical judgments: Type I error, adjustment, or mitigation?

Abstract

The nature of anchoring errors in clinical judgments was clarified. Study 1 tested if gender mediates the occurrence of anchoring errors. Judgments from 103 undergraduate psychology students evidenced neither anchoring errors nor gender differences. Given the inability to replicate Friedlander and Stockman's (1983) study, two rival hypotheses were advanced: the adjustment hypothesis (practitioners adjust appropriately their clinical judgments after receiving new client information) and the adjustment mitigation hypothesis (initial anchoring effects are mitigated by an adjustment effect). The judgments from 157 psychologists in Study 2 affirmed the adjustment and mitigation hypotheses over the anchoring hypothesis alone. The mitigation process appears adaptable in clinical judgments.

Making Sense of Client Data: Clinical Experience and Confirmationism Revisited

“…This is not inconsistent with the premises of the thesis proposed by Asch (1946). It has been found that clinical anchoring in early-divulged information is indeed in evidence in clinical judgment but that it can be attenuated when sufficiently discrepant information is provided later (Ellis, Robbins, Schult, Ladany, & Baker, 1990;Strohmer et al, 1990). Clinical judgments about clients seem to be based on initial impressions rather than the exhaustive observation and hypothesis testing, which are characteristics of sound scientific inquiry.…”

Effects of three types of potentially biasing information on symptom severity judgments for major depressive episode

“…Another possibility is that clinicians were indeed making the subsequent ratings on the nonessential criteria without being affected by (i.e., anchoring on) the essential information (cf. Ellis et al, 1990). …”

“…Given previous evidence that halo effects are typically assimilation effects, clear-cut DNVB was predicted to increase the severity of symptom ratings when compared to near-threshold DNVB. Directional predictions for either of the other two information manipulations (expectancy and anchoring) were not made given the lack of previous results in a consistent direction (e.g., Bieri et al, 1963;Ellis, Robbins, Schult, Ladany, & Banker, 1990;Lee et al, 1992;Markovsky, 1988;Plous, 1989).…”

Influence of information related to child physical abuse on professional ratings of adjustment and prognosis

“…The analog case methodology has been utilized in prior research (Ellis, Robbins, Schult, Ladany, & Baker, 1990;Hansen, Warner-Rogers, & Hecht, in press;Howe, Herzberger, & Tennen, 1988;Pain & Sharpley, 1989) and has been called for as a necessary approach to systematically examine clinical judgment (Lopez, 1989). The methodology is very useful for establishing experimental control, however it is unknown how results of this particular analog model would relate to judgments in actual practice.…”