JUDGMENT PROCESSES FOR MEDICATION ACCEPTANCE - SELF-REPORTS AND CONFIGURAL INFORMATION USE

In the present study college students (N = 186) made judgments of the likelihood of accepting a medication for treatment of a hypothetically experienced clinical depression. Three types of information were mani pulated: effectiveness of the medication for alleviating the symptoms of depression, potential side effects of the medication, and severity of depression hypothetically being experienced. The functional-measure ment approach was used to examine whether self-reports are related to judgments and whether there is configurality in judging likelihood of medication acceptance. The results showed that subjects who reported d ifferent variables to be most important had predictably different effe cts of the variables in their judgments. There was also evidence for c onfigural combination of information, and the nature of the configural ity differed between subjects who reported Depression versus Side Effe cts as the most important type of information, respectively. The resul ts show how the same information can be used differently by different individuals in making judgments, and that self-reports may reveal some important aspects of how information is used. The implications of the individual differences for health care consumer decision making and h ealth care professionals' assessments and interventions are discussed.