Over the past several years, there has been an increase in the research and understanding of the human factors that drive decision making in Audiology. From how hungry/tired clinicians or clients are to the fact that a random message on a wall or a website might have an influence on our decision making. There are a multitude of non-treatment factors that we all know have an influence on the likelihood that someone will be interested in hearing care including concepts like: self-efficacy, self-determination, cognitive dissonance, motivation, confirmation bias and the therapeutic alliance. This talk will be a review of concepts we probably all know, but may not think about day-to-day in clinical practice. Internally we guide our thinking by considering “what is the right message at the right time in the right context for someone who needs hearing help”. Hopefully, by the end of this talk, clinicians will have a better understanding of the psychological constructs that they interact with all day in the treatment of hearing loss.

Learning Objectives:

• A review of some of the important psychological constructs that drive human decision making.
• Acquire a better understanding of how to apply these constructs to your thinking in day to day clinical practice.