What we think affects how we behave: the relationship between beliefs and practice in psychologists' detection of malingering

Malingering is the deliberate fabrication or gross exaggeration of symptoms in order to gain a specific outcome. Whilst the definition of this form of deception has remained relatively unchanged for over a century, the reasons that some individuals engage in malingering is less clear. Whilst several explanatory models of malingering were proposed by Rogers (1990) nearly 20 years ago, the relationship between psychologists’ beliefs about malingering and their assessment practice has yet to be explored. The current paper presents data from a recent Australian study, which explored differences in Australian psychologists’ beliefs about malingering and the influence of such beliefs on their assessment behaviour.