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Diagnostic error, overconfidence and self-knowledge
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Cassam, Quassim (2017) Diagnostic error, overconfidence and self-knowledge. Palgrave Communications, 3 . 17025 . doi:10.1057/palcomms.2017.25 ISSN 2055-1045.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/palcomms.2017.25
Abstract
According to the overconfidence hypothesis (OH), physician overconfidence is a major factor contributing to diagnostic error in medicine. This paper argues that (OH) can be read as offering a personal, a sub-personal or a systemic explanation of diagnostic error. It is argued that personal level overconfidence is an ‘epistemic vice’. The hypothesis that diagnostic errors due to overconfidence can be remedied by increasing physician self-knowledge is shown to be questionable. Some epistemic vices or cognitive biases, including overconfidence, are ‘stealthy’ in the sense that they obstruct their own detection. Even if the barriers to self-knowledge can be overcome, some problematic traits are so deeply entrenched that even well-informed and motivated individuals might be unable to correct them. One such trait is overconfidence. Alternative approaches to ‘debiasing’ are considered and it is argued that overconfidence is blameworthy only if it is understood as a personal level epistemic vice rather than a sub-personal cognitive bias.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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Subjects: | R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine | ||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Philosophy | ||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Diagnostic errors -- Psychological aspects, Physicians -- Attitudes | ||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Palgrave Communications | ||||||
Publisher: | Palgrave | ||||||
ISSN: | 2055-1045 | ||||||
Official Date: | 11 April 2017 | ||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 3 | ||||||
Article Number: | 17025 | ||||||
DOI: | 10.1057/palcomms.2017.25 | ||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 14 March 2017 | ||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 9 August 2017 | ||||||
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