This research examined the influence of peripheral message cues on clinicians' judgment about the psychological status of clients. The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) of social persuasion suggests that peripheral message cues are likely to exert a greater influence on clinicians' judgments when a client's presentation meets some, but not all, diagnostic criteria for a disorder (i.e., when the presentation is ambiguous). Within this theoretical framework, we examined the effects of a peripheral message cue (level of irrelevant detail in the client's presentation) and presentation ambiguity on clinicians' judgments of need for treatment, illness severity, and distress. Consistent with predictions based on the ELM, for both obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder presentations, high levels of irrelevant detail exerted a greater influence on clinicians' judgments of clients' need for treatment when presentation ambiguity was high than when it was low.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	Decision making, clinical psychology
Research Division:	Psychology and Cognitive Sciences
Research Group:	Psychology
Research Field:	Health, Clinical and Counselling Psychology
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding Knowledge in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences
Author:	Sauer, J (Dr Jim Sauer)
ID Code:	95947
Year Published:	2011
Web of Science® Times Cited:	1
Deposited By:	Psychology
Deposited On:	2014-10-13
Last Modified:	2018-05-04
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