Abstract
Ninety Ss who had either not received or not completed formal diagnostic training made mental health judgments about 60 hypothetical persons, each of whom was represented on a 7-cue behavior profile. A comparison of these judgments with those made by 24 clinical psychologists and psychiatrists failed to reveal a significant difference between groups in terms of scope of cue utilization, magnitude of judgments, or confidence. Differences between groups were obtained, however, in terms of judgment reliability and profile cue utilization. Notable in regard to the latter was the finding that nonprofessional Ss usually ignored information of a “positive” nature (“enthusiasm”), and tended to weight heavily information about violations of legal norms.
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Mr. Faucher and Ms. Chapman are doctoral candidates at the University of Kansas. The research reported here was supported by NIMH Grant MH-17621-01 and by NIMH Grant MH-16437-02. The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Karene Will, Bertha Ramsey, and David Purdy.
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Summers, D.A., Faucher, T. & Chapman, S.B. A note on nonprofessional judgments of mental health. Community Ment Health J 9, 169–177 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01411093
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01411093