When success is not enough: the symptom base-rate can influence judgments of effectiveness of a successful treatment

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dc.contributor.authorBlanco Bregón, Fernando
dc.contributor.authorMoreno Fernández, María Manuela
dc.contributor.authorMatute, Helena
dc.date.accessioned2025-08-21T09:48:51Z
dc.date.available2025-08-21T09:48:51Z
dc.date.issued2020-10-23
dc.date.updated2025-08-21T09:48:51Z
dc.description.abstractPatients’ beliefs about the effectiveness of their treatments are key to the success of any intervention. However, since these beliefs are usually formed by sequentially accumulating evidence in the form of the covariation between the treatment use and the symptoms, it is not always easy to detect when a treatment is actually working. In Experiments 1 and 2, we presented participants with a contingency learning task in which a fictitious treatment was actually effective to reduce the symptoms of fictitious patients. However, the base-rate of the symptoms was manipulated so that, for half of participants, the symptoms were very frequent before the treatment, whereas for the rest of participants, the symptoms were less frequently observed. Although the treatment was equally effective in all cases according to the objective contingency between the treatment and healings, the participants’ beliefs on the effectiveness of the treatment were influenced by the base-rate of the symptoms, so that those who observed frequent symptoms before the treatment tended to produce lower judgments of effectiveness. Experiment 3 showed that participants were probably basing their judgments on an estimate of effectiveness relative to the symptom base-rate, rather than on contingency in absolute terms. Data, materials, and R scripts to reproduce the figures are publicly available at the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/emzbj/.en
dc.description.sponsorshipSupport for this research was provided by Grants PSI2017-83196-R, RTI2018-096700-J-I00, and PSI2016-78818-R from Agencia Estatal de Investigación of the Spanish Government (AEI) awarded to FB, MM-F and HM, respectively, as well as Grant IT955-16 from the Basque Government awarded to HMen
dc.identifier.citationBlanco, F., Moreno-Fernández, M. M., & Matute, H. (2020). When success is not enough: the symptom base-rate can influence judgments of effectiveness of a successful treatment. Frontiers in Psychology, 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/FPSYG.2020.560273
dc.identifier.doi10.3389/FPSYG.2020.560273
dc.identifier.eissn1664-1078
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14454/3395
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherFrontiers Media S.A.
dc.rights© 2020 Blanco, Moreno-Fernández and Matute
dc.subject.otherCausal learning
dc.subject.otherCognitive bias
dc.subject.otherPatients’ beliefs
dc.subject.otherBase-rates
dc.subject.otherCausal judgment
dc.titleWhen success is not enough: the symptom base-rate can influence judgments of effectiveness of a successful treatmenten
dc.typejournal article
dcterms.accessRightsopen access
oaire.citation.titleFrontiers in Psychology
oaire.citation.volume11
oaire.licenseConditionhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
oaire.versionVoR
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