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The ubiquitous nature of medical conflicts of interest is attracting increased attention from physicians, policymakers, and patients. However, little work has examined the psychological processes at play in the presence of such conflicts. I investigate the subtle influences arising from conflicts of interest that change behavior in both physicians and patients. First, I explore why physicians accept gifts from pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers that appear, to many critics, to be unethical. I review evidence from my published and ongoing research that demonstrates two psychological processes that enable physicians to accept industry gifts: (a) a sense of entitlement and (b) a sense of invulnerability to the biasing effects of conflicts of interest. Second, I investigate the situations that may increase or decrease bias. I find that people, subject to a financial conflict of interest, show greater bias in their advice when they feel less able to identify with the advice-recipient(s). This, perversely, leads to advisors giving more biased advice to groups of people than to one identified individual. Finally, I examine the impact of the conflicted advice on the

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Author

Sunita Sah

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Published

2012

Language

EN

Field

Medicine (Health Sciences)