The Unconscious Thought Effect in Clinical Decision Making: An Example in Diagnosis

Marieke de Vries, Cilia L. M. Witteman, Rob W. Holland and Ap Dijksterhuis
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Marieke de Vries: Department of Medical Decision Making, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands, M.deVries@lumc.nl
Cilia L. M. Witteman: Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Rob W. Holland: Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Ap Dijksterhuis: Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Medical Decision Making, 2010, vol. 30, issue 5, 578-581

Abstract: The unconscious thought effect refers to improved judgments and decisions after a period of distraction. The authors studied the unconscious thought effect in a complex and error-prone part of clinical decision making: diagnosis. Their aim was to test whether conscious versus unconscious processing influenced diagnosis of psychiatric cases. They used case descriptions from the DSM-IV casebook. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to the conscious-processing-condition (i.e., consciously thinking about the information they read in the case description), the other half to the unconscious-processing condition (i.e., performing an unrelated distracter task). The main dependent measure was the total number of correct classifications. Compared to conscious processing, unconscious processing significantly increased the number of correct classifications. The results show the potential merits of unconscious processing in diagnostic decision making.

Keywords: unconscious thought effect; clinical decision making; diagnosis; classification; DSM. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:medema:v:30:y:2010:i:5:p:578-581

DOI: 10.1177/0272989X09360820

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