Knowledge of Depression and Malingering: An Exploratory Investigation

Malingering mental disorder for financial compensation can offer substantial rewards to those willing to do so. A recent review of UK medico-legal experts’ practices for detecting claimants evidenced that they are not well equipped to detect those that do. This is not surprising, considering that ve...

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Main Authors: Ashley Cartwright, Rebecca Donkin
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: PsychOpen GOLD/ Leibniz Institute for Psychology 2020-03-01
Series:Europe's Journal of Psychology
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ejop.psychopen.eu/index.php/ejop/article/view/1730
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author Ashley Cartwright
Rebecca Donkin
author_facet Ashley Cartwright
Rebecca Donkin
author_sort Ashley Cartwright
collection DOAJ
description Malingering mental disorder for financial compensation can offer substantial rewards to those willing to do so. A recent review of UK medico-legal experts’ practices for detecting claimants evidenced that they are not well equipped to detect those that do. This is not surprising, considering that very little is known regarding why individuals opt to malinger. A potential construct which may influence an individual’s choice to malinger is their knowledge of the disorder, and when one considers the high levels of depression literacy within the UK, it is imperative that this hypothesis is investigated. A brief depression knowledge scale was devised and administered to undergraduate students (N = 155) alongside a series of questions exploring how likely participants were to malinger in both workplace stress and claiming for benefit vignettes. Depression knowledge did not affect the likelihood of engaging in any malingering strategy in either the workplace stress vignettes or the benefit claimant vignettes. Differences were found between the two vignettes providing evidence for the context-specific nature of malingering, and an individual’s previous mental disorder was also influential.
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spelling doaj.art-9db39616e74c43c190c12806404687b12023-01-02T00:21:55ZengPsychOpen GOLD/ Leibniz Institute for PsychologyEurope's Journal of Psychology1841-04132020-03-01161324410.5964/ejop.v16i1.1730ejop.v16i1.1730Knowledge of Depression and Malingering: An Exploratory InvestigationAshley Cartwright0Rebecca Donkin1Behavioural Sciences, School of Human and Health Sciences, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, United KingdomDepartment of Psychology, Leeds Trinity University, Leeds, United KingdomMalingering mental disorder for financial compensation can offer substantial rewards to those willing to do so. A recent review of UK medico-legal experts’ practices for detecting claimants evidenced that they are not well equipped to detect those that do. This is not surprising, considering that very little is known regarding why individuals opt to malinger. A potential construct which may influence an individual’s choice to malinger is their knowledge of the disorder, and when one considers the high levels of depression literacy within the UK, it is imperative that this hypothesis is investigated. A brief depression knowledge scale was devised and administered to undergraduate students (N = 155) alongside a series of questions exploring how likely participants were to malinger in both workplace stress and claiming for benefit vignettes. Depression knowledge did not affect the likelihood of engaging in any malingering strategy in either the workplace stress vignettes or the benefit claimant vignettes. Differences were found between the two vignettes providing evidence for the context-specific nature of malingering, and an individual’s previous mental disorder was also influential.https://ejop.psychopen.eu/index.php/ejop/article/view/1730malingeringmental health literacydepressiondeceptioncognitive load
spellingShingle Ashley Cartwright
Rebecca Donkin
Knowledge of Depression and Malingering: An Exploratory Investigation
Europe's Journal of Psychology
malingering
mental health literacy
depression
deception
cognitive load
title Knowledge of Depression and Malingering: An Exploratory Investigation
title_full Knowledge of Depression and Malingering: An Exploratory Investigation
title_fullStr Knowledge of Depression and Malingering: An Exploratory Investigation
title_full_unstemmed Knowledge of Depression and Malingering: An Exploratory Investigation
title_short Knowledge of Depression and Malingering: An Exploratory Investigation
title_sort knowledge of depression and malingering an exploratory investigation
topic malingering
mental health literacy
depression
deception
cognitive load
url https://ejop.psychopen.eu/index.php/ejop/article/view/1730
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