Social Judgement

Question 1

Why worry about decision-making?

Answer 1

1. Patient-Centred Care assumes that patients are part of the decision making process
2. Different levels of involvement at different points in the consultation / treatment
3. Education and age key predictors
4. Dentist preferred style of communication will influence decision-making

Question 2

Are people rational
decision makers?

Answer 2

no, they are influenced by emotion and stress.

Question 3

what is Framing options in
‘gains’ or ‘losses’?

Answer 3

Generally, people are more
likely to take up treatment if
presented in gain rather than
loss language.

people have a bias for success than for failure.

look at the demonstration given in powerpoint slides 6 and 7

Question 4

what are the causes of behaviour?

Answer 4

Determined by how serious the
outcome is:
– Different people blame judgments
likely to be made depending
on how serious the outcome was, rather than on the facts / events that led to the accident

– Situational outcome will
often lead people to look at
and evaluate the potential
causes differently- the value
of hindsight

– People are not brilliant at
making rational decisions

Question 5

What is the fundamental attribution error (Heider, 1958)?

Answer 5

People tend to attribute others’ behaviour to their own dispositional qualities rather than situational factors

Question 6

What is the actor-observer effect (Fiske & Taylor, 1980s)?

Answer 6

The tendency to make situational attributions for our own behaviours while making dispositional attributions for the identical behaviour of others

Question 7

Do these effects spill over to HCPs?

Answer 7

Yes:
Obese people are viewed negatively by:
-society in general
-most HCPs in studies across the healthcare setting
Advice offered by obese nurses trusted less than normal-weight ones by patients