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ERIC Number: EJ733589
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2005-Sep
Pages: 3
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0003-066X
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Clinical Judgment in Science: Reply
Westen, Drew; Weinberger, Joel
American Psychologist, v60 n6 p659-661 Sep 2005
This paper presents replies to comments published by M. S. Schulz and R. J. Waldinger, J. M. Wood and M. T. Nezworski, and H. N. Garb and W. M. Grove on the original article by D. Westen and J. Weinberger. Schulz and Waldinger (2005) make the important point that just as researchers can capitalize on the knowledge of experienced clinical observers through aggregation, they can aggregate the judgment of lay observers in assessing phenomena such as emotion. The reason, as they articulate, is that skills such as "reading" emotion from facial expression, tone of voice, posture, and the constellation of cues provided in everyday life are an area of expertise for most people, one that is now often called social or emotional intelligence. As psychometricians have known for years, one can increase reliability in many different ways. The comments by Wood and Nezworski (2005) and Garb and Grove (2005) do not address the authors' central thesis--namely, the importance of distinguishing two meanings of clinical. The point of the sentence around which Wood and Nezworski (2005) build their comment was simply that the same biases widely attributed to clinicians are common in scientists as well--a point for which the authors would be delighted to take credit, but it is one that was actually made much more elegantly by the historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn (1962). The authors respond to Wood and Nezworski's (2005) specific concerns about misrepresentation. In their comment, Garb and Grove (2005) challenge the authors to document their view that anticlinician prejudice is widespread among many academic clinical psychologists. As research on implicit prejudice suggests, surveys of academic clinical psychologists might indicate little about their implicit attitudes, as evident in Garb and Grove's apparent lack of recognition of the offensive nature of comparing a clinician's attempt to revise his or her understanding when the patient says "I don't think what you just said is right" to astrology and Barnum effects. The authors appreciate Garb and Grove's (2005) point about potential differential effects of training and experience on reliability and validity of clinical judgment. The data they cite are important and bear consideration. The authors would offer two caveats, however. Finally, they cannot help but note that this series of comments and their reply to them provide a prototypical example of "clinical" judgment in science--that is, subjective, informal aggregation of data, often leading to a "gestalt" judgment.
American Psychological Association. Journals Department, 750 First Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002-4242. Tel: 800-374-2721; Tel: 202-336-5540; Fax: 202-336-5549; e-mail: journals@apa.org; Web site: http://www.apa.org/journals.
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Opinion Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A