Oxford Text pg 280-287

attitudes and beliefs

source of clinician variable - the psychiatrists professional background or theoretical orientation

abilities

source of clinician variable - clinician’s perspective - talking, self-reflection, tolerance for uncertainty, tolerance for difference

cognitive biases

source of clinician variable - confirmation bias and illusory correlation

Langweiler and Linden (1993)

analyzed the influence of clinician variables on diagnosis of depression, found diagnosis can be related to the professional background and personal attitudes of the clinician

Chapman and Chapman (1969)

investigated psychiatrists’ ability to use Rorschach’s ink blots to diagnose homosexuality

Furnham and Malik (1994)

tried to explain why British Asians were rarely diagnosed with depression, found it was due to the underlying individualist-collectivist dimension

Kleinman (1982)

found Chinese patients express psychological problems mainly through somatic symptoms (due to stigma in Chinese culture)

Lin, Carter, and Leinman (1985)

studied Asian refugees and immigrants, found the more “traditional” a society, the more prone they seemed to somatization

Payne (2012)

asked clinicians to make diagnostic judgements of an actor with MDD symptoms

clinician bias hypothesis

African-American and Caucasian patients exhibit similar MDD symptoms but clinicians mistakenly judge these symptoms because of personal prejudices and cultural ignorance

cultural variance hypothesis

African American and Caucasian clients express their symptoms differently, but clinicians are insensitive to such cultural differences, resulting in bias (supported by Payne (2012)

Alarcon (2009)

cultural dimensions have rarely been given genuine and deep consideration, lists: cultural variables, family data, environmental influences, explanatory models, patients’ self-reported strengths and weaknesses as important factors