Heuristics and Biases in Medical Judgment and Decision Making

  • Steven Schwartz
Chapter
Part of the Social Psychological Applications to Social Issues book series (SPAS, volume 3)

Abstract

Ann Coulter could not stop worrying about the lump in her breast. No matter how hard she tried to put it out of her mind, her fear kept returning. Even though she knew that most lumps are benign, her first thought was that she had cancer. Ann’s doctor, Arlene Greenfield, reassured her that it was probably only a benign cyst: “Only 10% of movable, regularly shaped, lumps turn out to be cancer.” Nevertheless, Dr. Greenfield ordered a mammogram “just to be sure.”

Keywords

Anorexia Nervosa Expert System Decision Analysis Hindsight Bias Breast Lump 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 1994

Authors and Affiliations

  • Steven Schwartz
    • 1
  1. 1.School of Medicine and DentistryUniversity of Western AustraliaNedlandsAustralia

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