Proportionate Responses to Life Events Influence Clinicians' Judgments of Psychological Abnormality

Autor/inn/en	Kim, Nancy S.; Paulus, Daniel J.; Gonzalez, Jeffrey S.; Khalife, Danielle
Titel	Proportionate Responses to Life Events Influence Clinicians' Judgments of Psychological Abnormality
Quelle	In: Psychological Assessment, 24 (2012) 3, S.581-591 (11 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1040-3590
DOI	10.1037/a0026416
Schlagwörter	Psychological Evaluation; Clinical Psychology; Psychologists; Influences; Experience; Behavior; Vignettes + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Psychosoziale Beurteilung; Klinische Psychologie; Psychologist; Psychologe; Psychologin; Influence; Einfluss; Einflussfaktor; Erfahrung
Abstract	Psychological abnormality is a fundamental concept in the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" ("DSM-IV-TR"; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) and in all clinical evaluations. How do practicing clinical psychologists use the context of life events to judge the abnormality of a person's current behaviors? The appropriate role of life-event context in assessment has long been the subject of intense debate and scrutiny among clinical theorists, yet relatively little is known about clinicians' own judgments in practice. The authors propose a "proportionate-response" hypothesis, such that judgments of abnormality are influenced by whether the behaviors are a disproportionate response to past events, rendering them difficult to understand or explain. Licensed, practicing clinical psychologists (N = 77) were presented with vignettes describing hypothetical people's behaviors (disordered, mildly distressed, or unaffected) that had been preceded by either traumatic or mildly distressing events. Experts' judgments of abnormality were strongly and systematically influenced by the degree of mismatch between the past event and current behaviors in strength and valence, such that the greater the mismatch, the more abnormal the person seemed. A separate, additional group of clinical psychologists (N = 20) further confirmed that the greater the degree of mismatch, the greater the perceived difficulty in understanding the patient. These findings held true across clinicians of different theoretical orientations and in disorders for which these patterns of judgments ran contrary to formal recommendations in the "DSM-IV-TR" (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). The rationality of these effects and implications for clinical decision science are discussed. (Contains 2 figures and 4 footnotes.) (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10