Are psychotherapists' first clinical impressions fundamentally biased? An experimental approach.

Fifty years ago, the Rosenhan experiment was one of the most impactful psychological studies across decades. One of the main claims of the experiment was that clinicians could be negatively biased in their first clinical impressions, which would negatively impact further clinical decisions. We conducted two experiments ( = 56 and 64) in which psychotherapists were asked to give their first clinical impressions in two consecutive cases after a brief presentation of the case (case description and video excerpt) and a short recall task of the information provided.