Neuroscience information's effect on causal explanations of psychological disorders and treatment recommendations.

摘要

This study addresses neuroscience information's effect on the assessment of explanations of psychological disorders and clinical treatment recommendations. Neuroscience information that was irrelevant to the underlying logic of a causal explanation of a psychological disorder was added to both good and poor causal explanations and omitted from other good and poor causal explanations. Thirty non-Ph.D. students and 30 Ph.D. students rated how satisfying each of 24 explanations of 12 distinct psychological disorders felt to them. A 2 x 2 x 2 mixed design was used. Results revealed several significant findings about the role of neuroscience information in the assessment of explanations of mental illnesses. Good causal explanations of psychological disorders were judged to be more satisfying than poor causal explanations, especially for Ph.D. students. Surprisingly, the presence of neuroscience information appeared to increase the satisfaction of poor explanations to a greater degree among Ph.D. students than non-Ph.D. students. Students were then asked to diagnose fictitious patients depicted in vignettes in which some had embedded neuroscience information and others did not. Students were then asked how strongly they would recommend therapy and how strongly they would recommend medication to the fictitious patients. While both Ph.D.'s and nonPh.D's recommended therapy more strongly than medication regardless of neuroscience information, the Ph.D. students recommended therapy even more highly over medication than the non-Ph.D. group. Implications for these findings are discussed with regard to the effect neuroscience information has on our reasoning and judgment.