Anecdotes impact medical decisions even when presented with statistical information or decision aids.

Autor: Line EN; Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. neuline2@illinois.edu., Jaramillo S; Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA., Goldwater M; School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, Australia., Horne Z; Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Cognitive research: principles and implications [Cogn Res Princ Implic] 2024 Aug 26; Vol. 9 (1), pp. 51. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Aug 26.
DOI: 10.1186/s41235-024-00577-3
Abstrakt: People are inundated with popular press reports about medical research concerning what is healthy, get advice from doctors, and hear personal anecdotes. How do people integrate conflicting anecdotal and statistical information when making medical decisions? In four experiments (N = 4126), we tested how people use conflicting information to judge the efficacy of artificial and real medical treatments. Participants read an anecdote from someone in a clinical trial, or who had undergone a medical treatment previously, for whom the medical treatment was ineffective. We found that reading anecdotes for either artificial or real medical treatments shifted participants' beliefs about the efficacy of a medical treatment. We observed this result even when the anecdote was uninformative, was paired with an icon array, or when participants were provided with thorough medical decision aids about reproductive health procedures. Our findings highlight the pervasive effect of anecdotes on medical decision making.
(© 2024. The Author(s).)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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