When Patients Overreport Symptoms: More Than Just Malingering

• Published in: Current directions in psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society Vol. 28; no. 3; pp. 321 - 326
• Main Authors: Merckelbach, Harald, Dandachi-FitzGerald, Brechje, van Helvoort, Daniel, Jelicic, Marko, Otgaar, Henry
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.06.2019; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: symptoms; malingering; negative affectivity; alexithymia; self-reports; misinformation

Mental-health patients may report more symptoms than they actually experience. Experts and laypeople often view this overreporting as a sign of malingering. We show that there are multiple pathways to symptom overreporting: carryover effects from previous tests that lower the threshold for answering...