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Affective influences on clinical reasoning and diagnosis: insights from social psychology and new research opportunities

  • Guanyu Liu , Hannah Chimowitz und Linda M. Isbell EMAIL logo
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 4. Januar 2022
Diagnosis
Aus der Zeitschrift Diagnosis Band 9 Heft 3

Abstract

Psychological research consistently demonstrates that affect can play an important role in decision-making across a broad range of contexts. Despite this, the role of affect in clinical reasoning and medical decision-making has received relatively little attention. Integrating the affect, social cognition, and patient safety literatures can provide new insights that promise to advance our understanding of clinical reasoning and lay the foundation for novel interventions to reduce diagnostic errors and improve patient safety. In this paper, we briefly review the ways in which psychologists differentiate various types of affect. We then consider existing research examining the influence of both positive and negative affect on clinical reasoning and diagnosis. Finally, we introduce an empirically supported theoretical framework from social psychology that explains the cognitive processes by which these effects emerge and demonstrates that cognitive interventions can alter these processes. Such interventions, if adapted to a medical context, hold great promise for reducing errors that emerge from faulty thinking when healthcare providers experience different affective responses.

Keywords: affect; affective biases; clinical reasoning; information processing
Corresponding author: Linda M. Isbell, Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA, E-mail:

Funding source: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Award Identifier / Grant number: 5R01HS025752

  1. Research funding: This research was funded by Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Grant # 5R01HS025752 awarded to Linda M. Isbell.

  2. Author contributions: All authors contributed to the development and writing of this manuscript, and have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.

  3. Competing interests: Authors state no conflict of interest.

  4. Informed consent: Not applicable.

  5. Ethical approval: Not applicable.

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Received: 2021-08-11
Accepted: 2021-12-13
Published Online: 2022-01-04

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Review
  3. Affective influences on clinical reasoning and diagnosis: insights from social psychology and new research opportunities
  4. Mini Review
  5. Homocysteine in coronavirus disease (COVID-19): a systematic literature review
  6. Opinion Paper
  7. How insight contributes to diagnostic excellence
  8. Original Articles
  9. Diagnostic statements: a linguistic analysis of how clinicians communicate diagnosis
  10. The use of podcasts as a tool to teach clinical reasoning: a pseudorandomized and controlled study
  11. Diagnostic delays in infectious diseases
  12. Diagnostic journeys: characterization of patients and diagnostic outcomes from an academic second opinion clinic
  13. A pause in pediatrics: implementation of a pediatric diagnostic time-out
  14. Applying a diagnostic excellence framework to assess opportunities to improve recognition of child physical abuse
  15. Identifying predictors for source culture positivity in children with acute musculoskeletal infections
  16. Comparison of SARS-CoV-2 antigen electrochemiluminescence immunoassay to RT-PCR assay for laboratory diagnosis of COVID-19 in Peshawar
  17. Performance evaluation of automated cell counts compared with reference methods for body fluid analysis
  18. Short Communication
  19. Impact of subspecialty consultations on diagnosis in the pediatric intensive care unit
  20. Case Report - Lessons in Clinical Reasoning
  21. Pharmacists can improve diagnosis and help prevent diagnostic errors
  22. Letter to the Editors
  23. The art of diagnostic reasoning
  24. Improving the physical exam: a new assessment and evaluation tool for physical examination skills
  25. Performance of the Wondfo 2019-nCoV antigen test using self-collected nasal versus professional-collected nasopharyngeal swabs in symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection
https://doi.org/10.1515/dx-2021-0115
Schlagwörter für diesen Artikel
affect; affective biases; clinical reasoning; information processing

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Review
  3. Affective influences on clinical reasoning and diagnosis: insights from social psychology and new research opportunities
  4. Mini Review
  5. Homocysteine in coronavirus disease (COVID-19): a systematic literature review
  6. Opinion Paper
  7. How insight contributes to diagnostic excellence
  8. Original Articles
  9. Diagnostic statements: a linguistic analysis of how clinicians communicate diagnosis
  10. The use of podcasts as a tool to teach clinical reasoning: a pseudorandomized and controlled study
  11. Diagnostic delays in infectious diseases
  12. Diagnostic journeys: characterization of patients and diagnostic outcomes from an academic second opinion clinic
  13. A pause in pediatrics: implementation of a pediatric diagnostic time-out
  14. Applying a diagnostic excellence framework to assess opportunities to improve recognition of child physical abuse
  15. Identifying predictors for source culture positivity in children with acute musculoskeletal infections
  16. Comparison of SARS-CoV-2 antigen electrochemiluminescence immunoassay to RT-PCR assay for laboratory diagnosis of COVID-19 in Peshawar
  17. Performance evaluation of automated cell counts compared with reference methods for body fluid analysis
  18. Short Communication
  19. Impact of subspecialty consultations on diagnosis in the pediatric intensive care unit
  20. Case Report - Lessons in Clinical Reasoning
  21. Pharmacists can improve diagnosis and help prevent diagnostic errors
  22. Letter to the Editors
  23. The art of diagnostic reasoning
  24. Improving the physical exam: a new assessment and evaluation tool for physical examination skills
  25. Performance of the Wondfo 2019-nCoV antigen test using self-collected nasal versus professional-collected nasopharyngeal swabs in symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection
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