Sixty-Six Years of Research on the Clinical Versus Actuarial Prediction of Violence prediction. The Counseling Psychologist

In their meta-analysis of clinical versus statistical prediction models, Ægisdóttir et al. (this issue) extended previous findings of statistical-method superiority across such variables as clinicians ’ experience and familiarity with data. In this reaction, the authors are particularly interested in violence prediction, which yields the greatest support for actuarial models. In the past decade, actuarial prediction has continued to improve, but clinicians have not readily adopted these models, and new models have emerged that encourage reliance on unaided clinical judgment. Psychologists have made progress developing and disseminating actuarial risk assessments and should use the most accurate available measure suited to the task. Grove, Zale, Lebow, Snitz, and Nelson (2000) reported that statistical prediction was about 10 % more accurate than clinical prediction and was consistently superior across date and source of publication, type of judge (medical vs. psychological), general or task-relevant experience, type of data (e.g., interview results, psychological tests, trait ratings, behavioral observations, criminal record), and amount of data available. Statistica