The Impact of Social Class Bias on Psychologists' Clinical Reasoning

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  The Impact of Implicit Social Class Bias on NHS Psychological Practitioners’ Clinical Reasoning. NON REC STUDY REF: 16/HRA/1233

• IRAS ID

  196431

• Contact name

  Thomas Vlietstra

• Contact email

  t.vlietstra@surrey.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  University of Surrey

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 2 months, 10 days

• Research summary

  Many forms of mental health training require reflection on the dynamics of the professional-client relationship (Burnham, 2005); emphasis is placed on nonjudgementality, understanding the role of diversity and becoming aware of personal biases . Nonetheless, professional biases in relation to clients’ sexuality, race and gender have been seen to impact: willingness to work with a client, the treatments recommended, diagnosis, prognosis and perceptions of risk and violence (Mikton & Grounds, 2007). This has predominantly been researched through vignette studies, but there has been minimal engagement with social class bias in this literature (Liu, 2013).
  Previous research carried out by the investigators found that an average Implicit Association Test (measure of implicit prejudice) effect size for social class bias in Britain was considerably stronger than those typically reported in other domains of bias, such as race and gender (Vlietstra, Peel, & McNamara, Under Review). It is documented that implicit bias is predictive of prejudiced behaviour (Rooth, 2010), therefore we intend to apply this methodology alongside the traditional
  vignette method to assess the impact social class biases have on psychologists’ clinical reasoning.

  The current project is an online video vignette study; participants will either receive a video of either an ‘upper class’ or ‘lower class’ client in a psychological assessment video. They will then complete measures and tasks to assess the impact NHS psychological practitioners’ implicit social class biases may have on their ability to make decisions about a patient and their emotional response towards them

  It is hypothesised that there will be a significant difference between the responses of participants assessing a ‘lower class client’ compared to ‘upper class client’ in terms of:
  • Allocation of cognitive resources (e.g. time spent formulating the client’s difficulties)
  •Clinical Reasoning in relation to the client (e.g. severity, risk, diagnosis, prognosis)
  •Affective responses towards the client

• REC name

  N/A

• REC reference

  N/A