title: The effects of peripheral message cues on clinicians' judgments about clients' psychological status.
abstract: This research examined the influence of peripheral message cues on clinicians' judgment about the psychological status of clients. The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) of social persuasion suggests that peripheral message cues are likely to exert a greater influence on clinicians' judgments when a client's presentation meets some, but not all, diagnostic criteria for a disorder (i.e., when the presentation is ambiguous). Within this theoretical framework, we examined the effects of a peripheral message cue (level of irrelevant detail in the client's presentation) and presentation ambiguity on clinicians' judgments of need for treatment, illness severity, and distress. Consistent with predictions based on the ELM, for both obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder presentations, high levels of irrelevant detail exerted a greater influence on clinicians' judgments of clients' need for treatment when presentation ambiguity was high than when it was low.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. neil.brewer@flinders.edu.au
authors.forename: Neil
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Brewer
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Barnes
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sauer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D011586:Psychology, Clinical / Q000379:methods*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult