Constructive biases in clinical judgment

With a pair of oppositely valenced stimuli, rating the first one sometimes leads to a more extreme evaluation for the second (e.g., if the second is negatively valenced, rating the first stimulus would lead to a more negative rating for the second; White et al., 2014). We considered an evaluation bias in the case of clinical diagnosis relating to eating disorders. A population sample which included experienced clinical psychologists and psychiatrists, showed partial evidence of an evaluation bias, when judging descriptions of individuals designed to be consistent with eating disorders or not. Quantum probability theory, the probability rules from quantum mechanics without any of the physics, is particularly well-suited to modeling the evaluation bias (and constructive influences generally), because a measurement (or judgement) can change the state of the system. We applied a previous quantum model to the present result, an extension of the model embodying noisy processes, and Hogarth and Einhorn’s (1992) belief adjustment model. We discuss how model fits inform an examination of rationality in the observed behavior