Journal Publication

Published Peer-Reviewed Academic Journals

Conflict of interest disclosure as a reminder of professional norms. Clients First!

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Abstract Conflicts of interest create an incentive for advisors to give biased advice, and disclosure is a popular remedy. Across a series of studies, with monetary stakes creating conflicts of interest, I show that disclosure of the conflict of interest can increase as well as decrease bias in advice. The effect of disclosure depends on …

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Clinical practice guidelines and the overuse of health care services: need for reform

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Key Points Specialty bias and fee-for-service conflicts of interest threaten the validity of clinical practice guidelines and may lead to overdiagnosis, overtreatment and increasing health care costs. Clinical practice guidelines issued by medical specialty societies in North America frequently call for greater use of health care services linked to their specialties and are often at …

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Insinuation Anxiety: Concern That Advice Rejection Will Signal Distrust After Conflict of Interest Disclosures

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Abstract When expert advisors have conflicts of interest, disclosure is a common regulatory response. In four experiments (three scenario experiments involving medical contexts, and one field experiment involving financial consequences for both parties), we show that disclosure of a financial or nonfinancial conflict of interest can have a perverse effect on the advisor–advisee relationship. Disclosure, …

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Conflict of interest disclosure as an expertise cue: Differential effects of automatic and deliberative processing.

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Abstract Disclosure—informing advice recipients of the potential bias of an advisor—is a popular tool to manage conflicts of interest. However, conflict of interest disclosures usually compete with a host of other information that is important, relevant or interesting to the advisee. Across one field study and five experiments, we examine the effect of conflict of …

Conflict of interest disclosure as an expertise cue: Differential effects of automatic and deliberative processing. Read More »

A call for more science in forensic science.

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Abstract Forensic science is critical to the administration of justice. The discipline of forensic science is remarkably complex and includes methodologies ranging from DNA analysis to chemical composition to pattern recognition. Many forensic practices developed under the auspices of law enforcement and were vetted primarily by the legal system rather than being subjected to scientific …

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Policy solutions to conflicts of interest: the value of professional norms

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Abstract Advisors, such as physicians, financial advisors, lawyers and accountants, often face a conflict of interest – that is, a clash between their professional and personal interests. Such conflicts can lead to biased and corrupt advice. In this paper, I focus on how conflicts of interest can cause good people to unintentionally cross ethical boundaries …

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The effects of public disclosure of industry payments to physicians on patient trust: A randomized experiment.

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Abstract Financial ties between physicians and the pharmaceutical and medical device industry are common, but little is known about how patient trust is affected by these ties. The purpose of this study was to evaluate how viewing online public disclosure of industry payments affects patients’ trust ratings for physicians, the medical profession, and the pharmaceutical …

The effects of public disclosure of industry payments to physicians on patient trust: A randomized experiment. Read More »

Association Between Academic Medical Center Pharmaceutical Detailing Policies and Physician Prescribing

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This paper investigates the question: “How did physician prescribing behavior change after US academic medical centers implemented policies that limited pharmaceutical salesperson detailing?”   Abstract Importance In an effort to regulate physician conflicts of interest, some US academic medical centers (AMCs) enacted policies restricting pharmaceutical representative sales visits to physicians (known as detailing) between 2006 …

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Blinding prosecutors to defendants’ race: A policy proposal to reduce unconscious bias in the criminal justice system.

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Abstract Racial minorities are disproportionately imprisoned in the United States. This disparity is unlikely to be due solely to differences in criminal behavior. Behavioral science research has documented that prosecutors harbor unconscious racial biases. These unconscious biases play a role whenever prosecutors exercise their broad discretion, such as in choosing what crimes to charge and …

Blinding prosecutors to defendants’ race: A policy proposal to reduce unconscious bias in the criminal justice system. Read More »