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The Effect of Age and Personality on Doctors' Clinical Preferences
Author(s) -
WALTON H. J.,
HOPE KEITH
Publication year - 1967
Publication title -
british journal of social and clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0007-1293
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1967.tb00498.x
Subject(s) - psychology , extraversion and introversion , personality , minnesota multiphasic personality inventory , trait , scale (ratio) , clinical psychology , big five personality traits , social psychology , physics , quantum mechanics , computer science , programming language
General practitioners attending post‐graduate courses from various parts of Britain were studied. Two personality tests were used, the Complexity and the Thinking‐introversion scales. The doctors also completed a questionnaire evaluating their preferred method of approach to their patients' psychological disorders. An earlier analysis had shown that doctors' general tendency to either a physical or to a psychological bias was associated with their degree of reflectiveness, as measured by the Thinking‐introversion scale. The present analysis explored whether that factor, and also a second trait, the need for closure under conditions of uncertainty, influenced the clinical preferences of the doctors; the effect of ageing on style of practice was also studied.