Effects of patient racial attribution on black clinicians' inferences

This study was done to determine the impact of patient racial attribution on black practitioners' clinical judgments. Fifty-five professionals indicated their clinical reactions to a bogus case description of a sexually maladjusted male patient identified as black or white and also completed a traditional social beliefs scale. Relatively untraditional clinicians evaluated the black-designated patient more favorably than the white-designated patient. The less traditional practitioners also evaluated the black-designated patient more favorably than did the traditional clinicians. Effects of patient race were found for both clinical impressions and treatment decisions and were not attenuated in the more highly experienced subsample. Implications and limitations of the findings are discussed.