Clinical vs. Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and a Review of the Evidence" - ️️Paul Meehl's book; The major predicate: any judgement or decision requires a means of combining information in order to make a choice. The minor predicate: clinical diagnosis is one type of judgement. ...
Capstone 84 Exam Questions
"Clinical vs. Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and a Review of the Evidence" - ✔ ✔ Paul
Meehl's book; The major predicate: any judgement or decision requires a means of combining
information in order to make a choice. The minor predicate: clinical diagnosis is one type of judgement.
The essence of Meehl's argument was that an objective, algorithmic approach to combining information
is superior to a subjective one. Meehl's contention was that clinical diagnosis would be far more reliable
and valid if it were done using a statistical algorithm vs. relying on a therapist's professional judgment.
He also contended that a human being is not as consistently accurate as an algorithm would be in
identifying relevant information and assessing its usefulness in a given case, then combining it to
achieve an appropriate conclusion.
"Metaphysics" and "Physics" - ✔ ✔ "Metaphysics" is a book by Aristotle about the nature of reality.
Then, Plato wrote "Physics" about basically the same thing.
1. Psychiatric misadventures in mental asylums. - ✔ ✔ Electroshock and lobotomies where the
primary "solutions" to mental illness.
2. Research on psychotherapy. - ✔ ✔ Hans Eysenck looked into the effectiveness of psychotherapy.
Paul Meehl helped create the MMPI and hypothesized that Schizophrenia may be genetic. he also wrote
a book in support of using algorithms to diagnose patients rather than relying on the judgment of a
therapist. Marty Kohn trained Watson the computer in medical diagnosis (an algorithmic approach). Bill
Grove research the effectiveness of algorithmic approach and found that it was as good if not better
than clinical judgement most of the time. Dan Kahneman studied the rationality of humans, and found
that when non-experts make decisions, they tend to engage in anchoring bias.
3. As a result of #1 and #2, psychiatrists reinvent themselves as medicinal prescribers. - ✔ ✔ With
the development of numerous psychoactive drugs - beginning with chlorpromazine in 1950 - the
medical doctors (i.e., psychiatrists) who'd dominated psychotherapy for decades had a new tool, which
only they were allowed to prescribe.
According to logical empiricism, science follows what basic sequence of three steps? - ✔ ✔ 1.
Controlled observation of facts.
2. Through inductive logic, the derivation of hypotheses/theories to potentially explain those facts.
3. Empirical verification.
Aggregate - ✔ ✔ To collect or gather into a mass or whole; The number of scientists in the world is
increasing at a more rapid rate than the general population. So, although that decreases the chances of
any one researcher making a major discovery, it helps balance out the increased difficulty of science at
the aggregate level.
, Algorithm - ✔ ✔ Set of rules for determining the solution to a problem in a finite number of steps,
like a computer program. An algorithmic approach would be more inclusive and more reliable than the
ongoing alternative. It would take much of the "art" out of diagnosis and provide a stronger, more
scientific basis for the accurate clinical diagnosis of a client.
Anchoring bias - ✔ ✔ Tendency to over-rely on one piece of information. Can be solved with the use
of algorithms.
Authenticity tests - ✔ ✔ The oldest known psychological tests. They aim to answer the following
questions: Are individuals representing themselves accurately? Are they who they say they are? Or are
they lying? Two early examples are the Dried Rice Test (ancient China) and the Magic Donkey Test
(ancient India).
Before WWI, what were the responsibilities of psychologists? - ✔ ✔ The treatment of psychological
disorders did not fall within the purview of psychology. Freud, for example, called himself a physician
(one who used the process of psychoanalysis as a medical treatment). Psychologists were clearly
subordinate to medical professionals (i.e., "real doctors"). Psychologists of this time administered
diagnostic tests, weren't allowed to practice therapy in official settings, weren't covered by health
insurance, were essentially subordinates to med. school graduates, and were somewhat similar to
Master's v. Bachelorettes today.
Bennett, Gadlin, and Finley - ✔ ✔ Found that high-impact research results are more likely to come
from research teams (often spanning several universities) than from a single scientist.
Bill Grove - ✔ ✔ Complete a meta-analysis of research comparing these two approaches (algorithm
or no?) across a wide variety of instances in health and behavior assessment. He found that 89% of the
time, across a diverse set of circumstances, algorithmic/statistical judgement was at least as good as
clinical judgement.
Bob Yerkes - ✔ ✔ C. 1917, the U.S. Army commissioned a comparative psychologist at Harvard to
develop an intelligence test to administer to recruits & new inductees. Animal experimentalist - &
nascent eugenicist, which is even more disturbing - Bob Yerkes (Yerkes- Dodson Law; the Yerkes Primate
Center, near Atlanta) developed the first all-MC tests (Army Alpha & Army Beta tests).
Buckley and Eder - ✔ ✔ Found that the primacy effect causes about 3/4 of professional interviewers
make their decision within the first five minutes of an interview.
Dan Kahneman - ✔ ✔ A Nobel laureate conducted a study based on Meehl's work. Master chess
players can quickly examine a chessboard, say something like "black takes the king in four," and be right.
Veteran firefighters can glance at a situation and almost instantaneously make a correct life-or-death
decision. Kahneman won the Nobel in the category of Economic Sciences for demonstrating that
humans are not nearly as rational as we like to think we are. Kahneman found that when non-experts
make decisions, they suppress alternative interpretations. They become overly focused on only one
single solution (~anchoring bias). Non-experts essentially disregard all the other possible solutions.
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