Confirmatory information seeking is robust in psychologists' diagnostic reasoning

Area of Science:

• Cognitive psychology
• Clinical psychology
• Expert judgment

Background:

• Cognitive biases can influence expert decision-making.
• Understanding biases in diagnostic reasoning is crucial for accurate clinical practice.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the presence and extent of order effects, context effects, and confirmatory bias in licensed psychologists' diagnostic reasoning.
• To examine whether individual differences, such as cognitive reflection and bias blind spots, correlate with confirmatory bias.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments involving licensed psychologists (N=280) exposed to diagnostic vignettes.
• Participants ranked initial hypotheses and chose between confirmatory and disconfirmatory information to test their hypotheses.
• Study 2 extended the procedure with multiple information-seeking opportunities.

Main Results:

• Robust confirmatory information seeking was observed in both studies (92% in Study 1, persisting across opportunities in Study 2).
• Confirmation bias decreased slightly with each subsequent information-seeking opportunity in Study 2.
• Individual differences in cognitive reflection and bias blind spots were hypothesized to influence confirmatory bias.

Conclusions:

• Psychologists demonstrate a strong tendency towards confirmation bias during diagnostic reasoning.
• Findings underscore the need for psychologists to implement strategies to mitigate confirmatory reasoning, such as documenting evidence for and against hypotheses.
• Further research is warranted to explore the impact of bias on diagnostic accuracy.