Three models of clinical judgment.

3 simulation models were applied to clinical judgments of "psychotic" vs. "neurotic" for 29 judges across 7 samples of MMPI profiles. A crossvalidated multiple correlation was used as a goodness-of-fit measure for the 3 judgment models. On this basis, each of the 29 clinical judges was characterized as being either "linear" or "configural" in his utilization of MMPI test data, where configurality was operationally defined by the fit of the data to a model employing configural, or patterned, variables. It was shown that configurality was a consistent judgmental characteristic distinguishing 16 of the judges, but this characteristic was unrelated to both accuracy and amount of clinical training. Also, judges, as a group, tended to change their manner of judgment with changes in samples of MMPI profiles.