Cognitive Set and Clinical Inference: Referral Information May Not (Always) Affect Psychosocial Assessment

Abstract

Participants (N = 54) answered questions on the effects of general referral information about a client on subsequent clinical inferences about this client. They were randomly assigned to a "referral information" or "no referral information" condition before being presented with additional data. Clinical inferential tasks included the assessment of maladjustment, client stress, depressive status, psychiatric emergency, and global psychosocial functioning. Both univariate, and where applicable multivariate, tests consistently yielded nonsignificant results. It is concluded that general referral information may not affect, let alone bias, the clinical inference of depression. Drawing upon salience theory, it is cautioned that this may not be the case when specific data, high in diagnosticity, are included in a referral note.

Procedural Knowledge in Education for Direct Practice

“…Recent research suggests that practitioners in a variety of fields are vulnerable to biases and errors in their judgments and decisions (see for example, in psychology: Abraham, 1986;Alloy, 1985;in medicine: Schwartz, Gorry, Kassirer, & Essig, 1973;Biorck, 1977;in law: Faust, 1985;in psychiatry: Goldney & McFarlane, 1986;in nursing: Carevali, Mitchel, Woods & Tanner, 1984: and as a part of interdisciplinary research: Lehman, Lempert & Nisbett, 1988). Social work educators have long recognized the natural tendency toward bias and error.…”