Indigenous Dream Interpretation Authority and Treatment-Seeking Delay in Ghanaian Akan Communities: A Factorial Survey Experiment on Diviner Credibility and Referral Deferral
Year: 2026
Type: article
Study design: Study Protocol
Abstract: A factorial survey experiment is proposed in which Akan respondents evaluate vignettes that independently vary diviner diagnostic confidence, the perceived moral standing of the dreamer, the diviner's explicit referral advice, and the availability of a nearby clinic. The design permits estimation of how each dimension contributes to deferral, and of whether high diviner credibility amplifies or attenuates the effect of referral advice. The central argument is that diviner authority operates as a credibility multiplier: when a diviner is perceived as spiritually authoritative, both diagnostic pronouncements and referral recommendations acquire greater weight, so that referral deferral is not a simple function of whether diviners advise hospitals but of how their authority is constituted and recognised. The paper specifies the factorial design, the estimands, the vignette dimensions and the interpretive framework, and it derives testable propositions about the interaction between credibility and referral advice. It contributes a methodological template for studying indigenous interpretive authority within psychological help-seeking research, and it reframes treatment-seeking delay as a problem of authority calibration rather than of information deficit.
Institution: Cairo University
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7223219519